


Parenting For Dummies

by fringedweller



Category: NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: Babysitting, Case Fic, F/M, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-10
Updated: 2011-06-10
Packaged: 2017-10-20 07:36:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 49,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fringedweller/pseuds/fringedweller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kensi and Deeks have to look after the young child of victims of a brutal attack. Together they learn why the attack happened, who is to blame and, most importantly, just how you change a diaper. Oh, and somewhere along the way, they fall in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parenting For Dummies

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to seren_ccd and danakate, who volunteered to beta this monster!
> 
> This was going to be my het_bigbang entry, but I changed my mind. The song that Deeks sings was actually sung by Eric Christian Olsen in an episode of Community. You can listen to it [here](http://www.mediafire.com/?a5ylij15e4yb9ri).

“Okay,” Deeks said, brandishing a handful of bandages. “My name is Marty, and I’ll be your fully-trained field medic for the day. Where can I tie you up?”

He grinned and winked at her.

“It’s strap up, not tie up, jackass,” Kensi replied, rolling her eyes. She picked up the role-play card that the instructor had given her, and examined it.

“According to this, I’ve got a broken leg,” she read. “You have to assess the damage and splint the leg, and make ready for transport by a paramedic.”

“Okay then,“ Deeks said, hopping to his feet. “If you’d care to assume the position…”

He gestured at the floor with a flourish that got the attention of several of the other participants of the class. Field Medic Recertification was a required course for all NCIS agents, and both Kensi and Deeks were due for theirs. Hetty had packed them off to attend the four hour course early that morning, and they were nearing the end. Kensi knew that she had passed the practical test with her deft binding of Deeks’ arm. Her father had taught her this sort of basic survival technique since she was six, and she had smiled as she had tackled Deeks’ arm as she remembered her father and his Marine buddies patiently sitting as she had bandaged arms, legs, ankles and anything else she had been able to get her hands on. Some little girls grew up playing with dolls; little Kensi Blye had the men of the 1st Marine Regiment, 3rd Battalion.

Sighing, Kensi ignored her partner’s flirtatious banter. Deeks was a born flirt. She’d seen him flirt with old women, young women, even little girls responded to his charm. Animals seemed drawn to him, and that one time they had to put someone in a gay bar to complete surveillance on a target, Deeks had practically had to ward guys off with a stick.  
It was his nature, she thought to herself. It was who he was, and why he was so damn good at his job. He could fit in anywhere, be anybody’s friend.

That was why she refused to believe any of the barrage of nonsense that came from his lips regarding her. Despite her initial misgivings, Deeks had proved himself to be a solid partner. She trusted him with her life, and knew that he afforded her the same trust. She even saw him as a friend beyond the boundaries of their professional partnership.  
But as anything more?

No. She just couldn’t.

He wasn’t her type, anyway, she told herself as she got up from her chair and lay on her back on the cool wooden floor of the assessment room. She went for dark haired, serious types; men of action. Not blond, floppy-haired surfers. She liked men who dressed smartly, who took their appearance seriously. Not men who dressed like they were Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. Being clean-shaven was a must, she decided as she zoned out of Deeks’ running commentary on his actions. No girl liked being scratched up by stubble.

He did have beautiful eyes, though, she conceded. And his mouth was very expressive, with the way he was always biting his pouty lips…

Without warning, she felt Deeks’ hand slide up the inside of her denim-covered leg. She jerked upright and had to stop herself from lashing out at him, her close-quarter combat instincts creeping in.

“Woah!” Deeks said, falling backwards. “Easy, tiger! I told you that I had to put my hand there.”

He would have, she knew. Deeks may sound like a sleaze, but he wasn’t one.

“Sorry,” she said shortly. “Get on with it.”

He nodded and went back to feeling her thigh for non-existent breakages. Once satisfied that her femur was intact, he slid one of the splints up the inside of her thigh, and one on the outside. He deftly slid four triangle bandages around her leg and the splints, tying them firmly.

“There,” he said, pleased with his handiwork. “It’s now immobilised.”

He looked her up and down, and grinned that familiar grin that always preceded a cheesy line.

“How’s your breathing, partner?” he asked, leaning over her, pushing his head close to hers. “Need a little mouth-to-mouth?”

Kensi groaned and swatted at him.

“It’ll be fist-to-face if you’re not careful,” she warned him.

He rocked back on his heels, pleased to have elicited the usual reaction from her.

They waited for the examiner to make her way around to them. From her position prone on the floor, Kensi literally saw her partner from a new angle.

“You’ve got huge nostrils, Deeks,” she told him, amused. “Why have I not seen this before?”

“All the better to smell you with, my dear,” he replied immediately, picking up her wrist and sniffing at her pulse point. “Opium? Poison? What is it that you use?”

“Nothing,” she lied, wrestling her wrist from him. “I don’t use perfume.”

She had no idea why she lied about wearing scent. Most women wore something. Her choice of scent was one of the few really extravagant things she allowed herself. She’d been looking for a dress for a friend’s wedding when she’d wandered into a cosmetics store and a sales assistant had given her a spray of the perfume to try. She’d left the store shortly afterwards, after being reminded why no sane woman ever went into one on a Saturday, but throughout the day the scent on her wrist had stayed, changing subtly. She’d gone back to the store, just before it closed, and treated herself to a large bottle.

She kept it a secret, though. Kick-ass Kensi Blye was not the sort of woman you expected to be wearing Chanel on her pulse points. Admitting to it made her feel oddly vulnerable, as if showing that side of her femininity was somehow wrong in the testosterone-fuelled world of NCIS.

It was stupid, she knew, but there it was. Wasn’t a woman allowed to have some secrets from her partner?

“What’s taking them so long?” she asked, changing the subject. “I’m hungry.”

“You’re always hungry,” he teased. “Hold on.” He got up and rifled through his jacket pocket and returned with a candy bar. Kensi’s stomach growled audibly.

“Here you go,” he said, flipping it to her. “I thought you might want this sooner or later.”

“Thanks, Deeks,” Kensi said, a little touched that he would think to bring this for her. “You want half?”

“Nah, I’m good,” he told her, sitting back down at her side. “Besides, it’s got coconut in it. I hate coconut.”

“You really got this just for me?” she asked, pausing before she took a bite.

“No biggie,” he shrugged.

They waited in silence until the examiner came to them, assessed Deeks’ bandaging skills and told them they had passed both the practical and written exams. They were free to go back to headquarters, and, more importantly, they were free to go to lunch.

“So, where to?” Deeks asked as they pulled on their jackets and headed for Kensi’s car. Kensi threw him the keys, making him stop in surprise. She rarely let him drive her car.

“Your choice,” she told him.

“Are you sick?” he demanded, coming close and peering into her eyes. “Because I’ve just been recertified as a field medic, and I can help?”

“I’m not sick,” she told him, giving him an affectionate thump on the shoulder. “I’m just…letting you pick. Make the most of it.”

“I will,” he said, grinning. He unlocked the car and held the door open for her, an unusually chivalrous act. He then put the car in gear and took her to an amazing Chinese restaurant where the owner called him Louie, embraced him like a brother and declared that their meals were on the house.

It was, Kensi decided, shaping up to be a pretty good day.

Lunch over, they staggered back to the car and drove back to the office. Callen and Sam were out on a case, but Hetty said that they’d called to say that they’d be back within an hour and for Kensi and Deeks to stay put. There were a few things in her in-tray to deal with, and Kensi settled down to an afternoon of light bickering and paperwork with her partner.

 

Sam arrived back at the office first, without Callen but not alone.

Kensi looked up from her expense reports from their last op, and stared at Sam, open-mouthed.

“What is it?” Kensi asked doubtfully, peering at Sam’s blanket-wrapped bundle from the safety of her desk.

“Ssh,” Sam hissed, looking stressed. “It’s a nuclear warhead, what do you think it is?” he continued, cradling the bundle carefully in his powerful arms.

He was certainly holding it as if it were likely to go off at any moment.

“It’s a baby!” Deeks said delightedly, popping up from his chair and making a bee-line for Sam.

“Ssh,” Sam and Kensi said immediately.

Deeks sat down on the edge of Callen’s desk and investigated the sleeping child. “Congratulations, Sam,” he teased, dropping his voice enough as to not wake the baby. “I didn’t know you and Callen were trying.”

“Ha ha,” Sam said sarcastically, forgetting to modulate his tone. The baby whimpered and moved its hands, and he immediately froze in position, sweat breaking out on his brow. His look of panic receded when the baby settled back into sleep again.

“She belongs to our vics, dumb-ass,” he told Deeks quietly.

“It’s a girl?” Deeks asked, shooting around to the other side of Sam so he could peek at the baby more easily.

“She’s in pink, of course she’s a girl,” snorted Sam, mindful of his volume. He sighed and allowed Deeks to pull the blanket aside a little to reveal the sleeping child.

“A few hundred years ago in Europe,“ an authoritarian voice from the level of Sam’s elbow said, “Baby boys were dressed in pink because it was a dilution of red, which was seen as a strong and masculine colour.”

“Ssh!” the three agents hissed in unison, and then blanched, horrified at having shushed their tiny, but lethal, boss. Hetty stared at them all for a long moment, cobra-like, then relented and lowered her voice.

“Baby girls, conversely, were dressed in pale blue, as the Virgin Mary is usually presented as wearing blue in Christian iconography,” she finished.

“You wanna see the baby, Hetty?” Sam offered.

“Oh no, thank you Sam,” Hetty said hurriedly. “I’m allergic,” she said firmly. “Where is Mr Callen?”

“He dropped me back here, and then went out to grab some baby sh..uh, stuff,” Sam corrected, glancing down apologetically at both Hetty and the sleeping baby. “We couldn’t take anything from the crime scene.”

“Ah,” Hetty said, nodding. “Does Mr Callen know what will be required?”

“If he doesn’t, some woman at the store will help him out,” Kensi said dismissively.

“Single guy in a baby store? He’ll be eaten alive,” Deeks added. He was grinning sappily at the baby and running the tip of one of his fingers along one of the baby’s tiny hands. In her sleep she opened and closed her fists, and she had grabbed hold of Deeks’ finger possessively.

On cue, a distinctly distressed looking Callen emerged from the passageway to the underground parking garage. He was awkwardly carrying a large cardboard box and half a dozen plastic bags. When he dropped the bags at Sam’s feet, one of them made a loud, pathetic wheezing sound.

“Ssh!” Kensi, Deeks, Sam and Hetty all hissed, those that were able to putting their fingers on their lips.

“Sorry,” Callen said quietly, putting the box down on Sam’s desk. “I’ve seen action in some pretty dangerous places,” he said, dropping into his chair. “Chechnya, Pakistan, Baghdad. Never have I been so terrified as in that store.”

“Come under heavy fire from the moms there?” Sam teased.

Callen shot him a look that could etch glass.

“Never again,” he said darkly. “Next time, you go. See how you like being fresh meat.”

“How much stuff does one kid need?” Kensi said, poking through some of the fallen bags. “Babygros, diapers, pacifiers I get, but what’s this? An insect net?”

“Babies don’t like bugs!” Callen said defensively. “The saleswoman said so.”

“Bottles, a sterilising unit, spare teats,” she went on, pawing through the bags.

“She has to eat!” Callen protested.

Kensi held up a large plastic duck, the originator of the wheezing sound.

“The woman had me pressed up against the bath toy rack, it was either that or an octopus,” Callen said, sounding defeated.

“Ducks are classic,” Deeks told him, nodding seriously. “Good choice, man.”

“This doesn’t look new,” Kensi said, taking a stuffed toy rabbit from the bag. “In fact, it looks ancient.”

“It was in her crib,” Callen said defensively. “I thought her mom might have wanted her to have it.”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to take anything from the crime scene?” Deeks cut in.

“Her room was untouched,” Callen argued. “The shooters never made it that far. And if her parents don’t make it…”

He trailed off, leaving the rest of his sentence unsaid but understood. If her parents were to die, then at least the child would have one item that was a gift from them. That was one item more than he himself had been allowed to keep.

“What’s in the box?” Sam asked, glancing at the large cardboard box on his desk and shifting the subject slightly.

“Car seat,” Callen told him. “Illegal to transport a kid without one.”

“As much fun as it is to see Callen freak out after an hour in Toys R Us, just why do we have a baby here?” Deeks asked, rescuing his finger from the baby. “Because I was told not to bring Monty back, and if Sam and Callen get to have a baby, I want to bring a dog to work.”

Hetty opened her mouth to answer, but was cut off by a piercing whistle from Eric, who was leaning over the balcony from the upper floor.

“Sssh!” they all hissed in unison, but it was too late. The noise had woken the baby, who proved herself the owner of a truly impressive set of lungs.

“Sorry,” Eric said, retreating from five fierce glares and a squalling child. “More info from the crime scene up on the board.”

Hetty was the first to break ranks, and made for the stairs. Callen slipped after her. Sam turned to Deeks, and deposited the baby in his arms.

“Support the head,” Sam warned him, and sped off up the stairs.

“Hey!” Deeks protested. “Sam, you can’t just…ssh, sweetheart, go to sleep,” he said soothingly, jiggling the baby a little in his arms. The movement didn’t seem to help, and the wails increased in volume and intensity.

“Kensi? You wanna help here?” he asked, turning to his partner, who had one foot on the steps.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not good with kids, Deeks,” she said shortly. “Just shut her up and get upstairs.”

Deeks followed her movements upstairs with his eyes, a small frown on his handsome features. He sighed and looked at the crying baby.

“Anybody here a baby whisperer?” he asked the office at large, looking helplessly at the men and women who were smirking at him. “Anyone? Doris? Doris, you’re a Nana, I’ve seen the photos. Help a guy out.”

A large, grey-haired lady who ran the forensic accounting division sighed, and put down the stack of files she had been transporting to the copy room. She gestured her agreement and Deeks gratefully handed the bundle over to the older woman. She removed the blanket from the baby and lifted her into the air, sniffing at the child’s behind.

“There’s your problem right there,” she said, a hint of humour lightening her tone. “I don’t suppose you know how to change a diaper?”

“Not at all,” Deeks said, with his best helpless look, the one that guaranteed him the help and support of women aged eight to eighty and the telephone numbers of a cross-section of those in between.

“Now’s the perfect time to learn,” Doris, veteran of many helpless looks, told him firmly. “Where can I put her down?”

“Sam’s desk,” Deeks said immediately. “Definitely Sam’s desk.”

Doris deftly changed, cleaned and re-diapered the baby with the supplies from one of Callen’s bags. The baby stopped crying. Deeks watched in awe as the older woman kept up a running commentary of instructions and tips.

“She’ll probably sleep now,” Doris said, handing the baby back to him. “At least until she gets hungry again. She’s a pretty thing. Look at that shock of dark hair! What’s her name?”

“I…uh, actually, I don’t know,” confessed Deeks. “I guess I’d better head up to the briefing and find out. I don’t suppose there’s any chance….”

“Not a one,” Doris said firmly. “I’m an accountant, not a babysitter.”

“Right,” Deeks said, defeated. “Thanks for the demo, anyway.”

The baby yawned widely and settled back in his arms. Within minutes the regular rise and fall of her chest indicated that she had slipped back into sleep again. He judged it safe to head into ops with her, as long as Eric kept the whistling to a minimum.

When he entered the room, pictures of the baby’s parents were splashed up on the big board and the team were debating something intensely. Kensi, in particular, looked particularly stubborn.

Not that that’s anything unusual, he thought, trying to hide a smile. Stubborn should have been his partner’s middle name.

“This is a bad idea,” she said flatly. “There’s no way that this can end well.”

“There is no other option,” Callen said, equally firmly.

There was a tense stand-off between the two agents, and that surprised Deeks. In fact, he couldn’t remember a time when Callen and Kensi had argued over how an op went down. Kensi followed the orders she was given, offering opinions but ultimately doing as she was told. To argue so blatantly with Callen, in public, in the ops room must mean that something was really freaking her out. Deeks quietly walked behind her, talking up an unobtrusive position at her back.

“What’s going on guys?” he asked, softly.

Kensi shot a glance sideways, registering his presence, her eyes narrowing when she saw the baby sleeping in his arms. Callen’s mouth tightened to an even firmer line.

“These are the parents of the baby, Deeks. Captain Valerie Tucker and her husband, Commander Nathan Tucker. They work for the Cryptography division of Naval Intelligence, and they’re currently on maternal and personal leave after the birth of their first child, Anne.” Sam broke the tension in the room by explaining. He touched the board and pictures of the crime scene that he and Callen had been sent to that morning popped up.

“This is what’s left of their home after a group of armed men, dressed in black and carrying assault rifles kicked down their door this morning and opened fire on them as they were having breakfast.”

Deeks stared in horror at the pictures of the destroyed living room and kitchen. Large bullet holes peppered the walls, and chairs and sofas were turned over and ripped apart by the bullets. Broken china was everywhere, as were gruesome pools and trails of blood.

“Are they dead?” asked Deeks quietly, glancing down at the sleeping child.

“Amazingly, no,” Sam said. “Their next door neighbours are three nurses sharing a house. They heard the shots and called it in, then headed into the house to see what happened. They managed to stop the Tuckers from bleeding out until the paramedics got there. They’re in surgery now.”

Deeks looked across at Kensi and Callen, who were still in their tight-lipped stand-off.

“Annie wasn’t hurt,” Deeks stated. “How come?”

“She was in her crib in the bedroom,” Hetty answered. “By the looks of things, the assault team didn’t go any further into the house than the kitchen. And her name is Anne, Mr Deeks. Not Annie.”

“So, either they didn’t know about her, or didn’t care about her, or couldn’t bring themselves to shoot a baby,” Deeks said, looking again at the grim photographs.

“She got lucky,” Sam said flatly. “Her parents didn’t.”

“Captain and Commander Tucker are under armed guard in the hospital at the moment,” Hetty informed them all. “If they survive surgery, they’ll be transferred to the hospital on-base for further treatment. We can protect them better there.”

“Can we?” Callen asked, frowning. “We have no idea who these shooters were, or why they were after the Tuckers."

“Both the captain and the commander have access to top secret intel,” Nell told them from her computer station. “They do highly classified, very important work.”

“Maybe somebody thought they knew too much,” Deeks offered.

“Captain Tucker has been on maternity leave for four months,” Nell said, clicking at her keyboard. “Two weeks prior to the birth of Anne, and three months, two weeks afterwards. She wouldn’t have had access to any intel during that time. Commander Tucker had one week’s leave for the birth of Anne, then returned to work for a while, before taking extended personal leave one month ago. He’s been granted eight weeks.”

“That’s not normal,” Sam told them. “They never give you that much time in one block like that. Could be that the shooters knew the Tuckers.”

“That’s something we can investigate,” Hetty said. “But we can’t rule out the possibility that this was a terrorist attack from outside the US either.”

“So she’s four months old?” Deeks asked, returning his attention to the baby.

“Sixteen weeks,” Nell corrected him. “Paediatricians go by weeks instead of months for infants, because not all months have the same number of days and weeks in them.”

“How did you know that?” Eric asked.

“My sister’s just had her second baby,” Nell sighed, “and all I hear about are stretch marks, colic and diaper rash.”

“Sweet sixteen,” smiled Deeks, looking at the sleeping baby, earning him a roll of the eyes from Kensi.

“So, what do we do now?” he continued. “Are we heading back to the crime scene, or out to the naval base?”

Callen and Kensi immediately tensed again, and a flicker of annoyance ran over Hetty’s face.

“I say we hand Anne over to Child Protective Services, and split up to investigate the attack,” Kensi said, glaring daggers at Callen.

“And I say that there’s no way in hell I am putting a child into the LA foster care system,” Callen returned, just as fiercely.

Ah, Deeks thought. There we have it. Giving the baby to foster parents while her mother and father were in hospital was the logical – and, indeed, legal – thing to do. But Callen’s horror stories of his childhood were enough to make even someone as stoic as Sam look uneasy about letting go of the child.

“What do you want us to do with her, Callen?” Kensi asked, throwing her hands up into the air in frustration. “We can’t give her to Child Protective Services, we can’t leave her at the hospital, neither of the Tuckers have family in LA!”

“If the gang that shot her parents know she’s alive, then her life could be in danger,” Callen said through gritted teeth. “Leaving her in the hospital means putting the lives of other patients, other babies, at risk too. She needs protection.”

“And just who is supposed to provide that?” Kensi asked, hand on her hips, and then she caught sight of the way first Callen, then Hetty were looking at her.

“Us?” she said, shocked. “Callen, we’re NCIS agents, not babysitters. We have other, more productive things to do with our time.”

“More productive than ensuring a child lives?” Callen spat out, and Kensi blanched at the venom in his voice.

“No, Callen, that’s not what I meant…” she said, but Callen waved off her explanation.

“That…didn’t come out right,” he said, after a visible deep breath.

The two agents looked at each other and nodded, clearly apologising in the weird shorthand that the team had developed over the years. Deeks followed this silently from the side of the room. He was still the new guy in many ways, and picking up this shorthand was one of the things that took time.

“Both of your arguments have merit,” Hetty said, wading into their debate. “But I’m siding with Mr Callen on this issue.”

Deeks and Sam shared a glance, both surprised by Hetty’s ruling. She was not, by nature of her job, a sentimental woman, and Callen’s argument was mainly based on a gut emotional reaction to the thought of foster care.

“Until we know why the Tuckers were shot, and by whom, we don’t know if their daughter is in danger. Protecting the child falls to us; her parents are naval officers, and we look after our own. Putting the child into civilian foster care could cause trouble for her carers, trouble that we can’t afford.”

Hetty looked at Deeks, who was holding the baby carefully and rewrapping the end of the blanket around her feet. It had slipped during the briefing, and Eric always had the air con on full blast to counteract the heat generated from the banks of computers and the giant screens. Neither Sam nor Callen had thought to grab any socks for her, and Deeks didn’t want her feet getting cold.

“I am authorising a new undercover operation,” Hetty announced. “Mr Deeks, you and Miss Blye will assume the roles of the parents of the child, and set up in one of our safe-houses while Mr Callen and Mr Hanna will investigate the attempted murders of the captain and the commander.”

Callen nodded curtly. “We’ll go back to the crime scene, and see if the LAPD missed anything,” he told Hetty. He avoided eye contact with Kensi and Deeks as he made his way out the door with Sam, glancing apologetically at them, following him.

“Mr Beal, get working on backstopping some new identities, please. Choose professions that would allow both parents to work from home.”

“How long do you think this is going to take, Hetty?” Kensi asked, looking resigned as her picture flashed upon screen on a new driver’s license that Eric was putting together.

Hetty paused before answering. “I’m not sure,” she replied at last. “It’s dependent on many factors – the survival of the Tuckers, the investigation into the shooters. You’d best prepare yourself for at least a week, possibly more.”

“I’ll get a list of suitable safe-houses drawn up,” Kensi said, sighing.

“Pick one near a park,” Deeks said cheerfully, stroking the delicate skin of Annie’s forehead.

“Why?” Kensi asked, confused.

“You take babies to the park,” explained Deeks carefully. “For fresh air…and swings.”

“She’s a little young for swings, Deeks,” Kensi said, shaking her head.

“But not for fresh air,” Deeks said stubbornly.

“Alright,” Kensi said, putting her hands up in defeat. “I’ll look for a park.”

Deeks grinned as Kensi left the room, shaking her head and muttering.

“You seem to be taking the news of this assignment better than Kensi,” Hetty said, walking over to him and looking at him carefully. Her eyes were penetrating, and even if Deeks had felt the need to lie to her, he wasn’t sure he could.

He looked down at the innocent child asleep in his arms and sighed.

“I’ve done a lot of undercover work, Hetty, you know that. And most of the time, the people I had to be weren’t good. I had to do a lot of things to sell my cover that I’m not proud of.”

He risked a look at Hetty, who had relaxed her features into a soft smile.

“I understand, Mr Deeks. Probably far more than you understand,” she told him.

There was acceptance in her eyes, he saw. Deeks didn’t talk much about his days undercover for the LAPD. Some things he never mentioned at all, the events that prompted the nightmares that woke him sometimes still, all these years later.

“No matter how many times you tell yourself that you’re a good guy, you can’t help but feel…dirty, sometimes,” he continued softly, looking back down at the baby. “Like some of the tarnish has rubbed off on you.”

He stroked the baby’s dark hair softly.

“This time,” he said, looking back at Hetty and smiling, “this time, I get to be somebody good. A dad. Not a bookie, or a drug dealer, or a gun for hire, but just a guy who’s had a baby. It’s a nice feeling.”

Hetty smiled, and laid a hand on his arm.

“Then I hope you can get a measure of enjoyment from this assignment, Mr Deeks,” she said. “Because I fear that Miss Blye is not as enthralled at the prospect.”

Deeks shrugged. “She can be the one that keeps watch with the sniper rifle,” he told Hetty. “I’ll do the diaper changes. That should cheer her up.”

“You’re a very brave man, Mr Deeks,” Hetty said, still smiling. “Come and see me in half an hour, I’ll have your credit cards sorted by then.”

After ten minutes of fierce haggling with Eric over what names would be used for their new identities, Deeks went to find Kensi, who was sitting at her desk, typing furiously at her laptop. He sat on the edge, peering forward to look at the screen.

“Got a location yet?” he asked.

“I’ve shortlisted some,” she said, bringing up the screen. They were all anonymous apartments in average high-rises, each as bland and beige as the last.

“No,” Deeks said decisively.

“No?” Kensi repeated. “Why ‘no’? They’re all a long way away from the Tuckers’ home, they’ve all got excellent safety ratings…”

“No back door,” Deeks told her. “If the gun squad come back, we’ll need at least two exits. And I want a visual on anybody coming close to the building. Too many civilians live in these blocks, people will be buzzing in and out of the buildings all the time.”

“You’re right,” she said, frowning, looking at the database again. “We’ll need something different.”

Baby balanced on one arm, Deeks leaned in further, and got a nose full of the scent Kensi swore up and down she didn’t wear. It was light and floral, totally not the perfume that he’d imagine someone as exotic-looking as Kensi to choose. He’d have thought she’d have gone for something musky and mysterious, the sort of thing that would have lots of billowing red velvet and a big black panther on the TV ad. Something sexy and bold, just like she was. Instead she smelled as if she’d just come back from skipping through a field of flowers, and it was just one more inconsistency about his partner that drove him nuts whenever he thought about it.

Like in the line for coffee.

And when he was taking Monty for runs along the beach.

And in the shower.

And in bed.

Alright, he was thinking of her pretty much all the time, and, yes, a lot of those thoughts were about how she had just annoyed him, teased him, pranked him or insulted him. But the rest were about how she threw herself into oncoming traffic in order to back him up, about how she was dragging him through the insanely tough NCIS professional development course in an attempt to keep him alive and how she was finally beginning to let down some of the heavy-duty emotional walls she had built up over the years.

Well, maybe most of his thoughts were like that. There were one or two…a few…more like an altogether unprofessional number of thoughts about his partner that cropped up involving her and some of the spectacular evening dresses he’d seen her wear while on a mission. And that pink bikini from their beach surveillance turned up fairly often, too. Who knew that tough-as-nails, by-the-book Special Agent Kensi Blye had a belly-button piercing? And kept a shiny crystal placed there? He didn’t know if she wore it every day, or just at the weekends, and the thought of it just drove him crazy. He kept stealing sideways glances at her when her shirt rode up, trying to see if that light-grabbing crystal was still in place, but she always wore a camisole under her button-down shirts. He hadn’t seen it since that morning at the beach, and she probably took it out when she was in the gym so it didn’t catch when they sparred.

Just one more little mystery for him to solve.

“Stop!” he said suddenly. “That one.”

“That one?” she said dubiously, clicking on the details of the safehouse. “There’s no way that Hetty will let us use that one.”

“It’s in a good area,” Deeks argued. “Look, it’s close to two, no three schools. Plenty of parents and kids around there.”

“Plenty of rich parents and kids there,” Kensi said dubiously.

“Lots of security,” Deeks countered. “We’d be a block away from a police station, and the house is in a gated community.”

“Rent-a-cops aren’t going to be much good against an attack squad,” Kensi said dismissively.

“No, but they might notice suspicious types lurking about the place with guns,” Deeks replied, trying to keep his tone even so the baby didn’t wake up. “And the house is close to a few parks and the beach.”

“You know you’re not putting an offer in to buy the house, right?” Kensi asked, smiling.

“Just flag it up as a possible, and let Hetty decide,“ Deeks asked, and sighing, Kensi did just that.

She kept sending the baby sideways glances as she scrolled through the list of safe houses available. Deeks noticed and smiled.

“You wanna hold her?” he offered.

“No, thanks,” she said quickly. “She’s sleeping, she might wake up.”

“She won’t,” Deeks said. “Look, just hold out your arms and take her.”

“No, thank you,” Kensi said, scooting her chair away from him.

“She won’t bite,” Deeks teased. “She hasn’t got any teeth!”

“I said no, Deeks!” Kensi said firmly.

“Okay, okay, unbunch your panties. I’ve got her.”

“Why don’t you see what Callen bought at the baby store?” Kensi said, after a few minutes of terse silence. “We’ll need more than he was able to get.”

“I’ll need both hands,” Deeks replied, frowning down at the baby in his arms. “Can you open the car seat box? I’ll buckle her into that.”

Kensi made short work of the tape on the box, and pulled out the large seat.

“It’s one of the ones that turns into a carry-chair,” Deeks said, after examining it. “That’ll be one less thing we’ll need, anyway.”

Buckling the child into the seat was easy, but he fiddled for several minutes with the neck cushions to make sure that her head was supported in the right way. Sam had seemed pretty clear about her needing that. Finally satisfied that she was in the right position, he fell to looking through the bags. Callen had bought bottles and powdered milk, as well as diapers and pacifiers. There were a few babygros and bibs in the bags, but no real clothes. The baby was still in her sleep-suit. There was the bizarre insect net, the large plastic duck and a bottle steriliser. Tucked into one of the bags was a copy of Parenting For Dummies which Deeks took care to hide from Kensi. Clearly Callen had never intended to hand the baby over.

“We’re gonna need clothes,” Deeks reported. “And a lot more formula. And probably one of those baby-slings. And a stroller. Oh, and a crib. And one of those bouncy things that hangs in a doorway and lets the kid jump up and down?”

“It’s a good thing that I decided to give you one of the higher-limit cards, Mr Deeks,” Hetty said, surprising Deeks, who hadn’t realised that she had crept up behind him as he was going through their supplies.

She held out a black credit card to him, and Deeks could feel his eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“What’s our limit?” he asked, and Hetty shook her head.

“Don’t worry about that, Mr Deeks. Buy the child what she needs. We can always put the items in storage once the op is over.”

“That’s very generous of you, Hetty,” Deeks said quietly, watching the older woman as she looked at the sleeping child in the carry-chair.

“There is a time for economy, Mr Deeks, and a time to spare no expense. For young Miss Tucker there, NCIS will spare no expense.” She gave one last, fond look at the child, then assumed her usual, business-like expression. “Kensi, have you found a suitable safe-house?”

When Hetty turned her back on him, Deeks put his hands together in a prayer and mouthed “Please?” at Kensi, opening his eyes wide in a way that had worked wonders on women in the past.

“There are several that would be suitable,” Kensi began, turning the laptop screen so Hetty could view the shortlist. “But…we would prefer the first house on the list.”

She had paused before stressing the we, shooting an amused look at Deeks over Hetty’s shoulder.

“I suppose you would,” grumbled Hetty, looking sideways at Deeks, who abruptly took on his best angelic air. “Sun deck, private pool, private gym, gas powered barbeque, wooden floors…”

“Excellent position, in a suitable neighbourhood for our cover, close to LAPD support,” Kensi countered.

“Hmm,” Hetty murmured as she skimmed the rest of the list.

Kensi and Deeks made eye contact, waiting nervously for Hetty’s decision.

“Very well,” she sighed eventually. “I’d rather you three use it than some drug baron with an immunity plea. I’ll go and get the paperwork started.”

The baby started to whimper in her chair. Kensi’s eyes flashed towards her nervously.

“She’s probably getting hungry,” said Deeks, with all the false confidence of a true undercover agent. He rummaged in the bags and brought out the powdered formula and a bottle. He held them out to Kensi.

“I’m not making up her bottle,” Kensi said, hiding behind her laptop.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” Deeks said cheerfully. “You can stay with her as she cries.”

“I’ll do it,” Kensi said immediately, taking the formula and bottle and hot-footing it out of the bullpen and into the kitchen area.

Deeks unbuckled the baby from her carry seat and took her back into his arms.

“Good afternoon, princess,” he said quietly, turning his back to the main bullpen so they wouldn’t hear him talking to the baby. “I’m Uncle Marty, and me and Auntie Kensi are going to be looking after you until your mommy and daddy are back on their feet.”

The baby didn’t seem impressed with the news, and kicked her feet out, making louder unappreciative noises.

“I bet you’re hungry,” Deeks went on. “Auntie Kensi will be right back when she’s made up your bottle.”

Deeks turned around to scan the area for his partner.

“Any minute now,” he told the unconvinced baby.

Kensi looked at the giant tub of formula powder in confusion. The list of instructions was a mile long.

“Alright,” she said scanning the instructions. “First, sterilise the bottle, the teat, the lid, the retaining rings and the caps. Shit.”

She pulled the package of bottles from the carrier bag and scanned the back of it. Pre-sterilised, thank God. She didn’t have time to unpack the steriliser Callen had bought and set that up too.

“Clean and disinfect the work surface you are about to use,” she read.

Probably wise advice, she thought, taking in the decidedly unhygienic kitchen area. She rooted about under the sink until she found a bottle of disinfectant and a sponge, and set to wiping down one of the counters.

“Wash and dry your hands,” the formula can advised.

Kensi looked down at her hands.

“They’re germ free now that I’ve got disinfectant on them,” she grumbled under her breath, but she duly switched on the water and washed them with some liquid soap. She took a closer look at the sink, covered in limescale, and the grimy taps, then sighed and got the disinfectant back out and scrubbed the sink. She then rewashed her hands.

She put the clean bottle on the disinfected work surface and ignored the instructions about using tongs. The bottle hadn’t been in the steriliser, so it wasn’t hot.

“Boil the kettle,” the can advised her. She groaned under her breath and wished she had thought ahead to do that before she started cleaning the kitchen. She tapped her foot impatiently as the kettle heated the water. She poured the recommended amount into the bottle, and added three level scoops of the powder before screwing on the lid and shaking it.

“Now wait thirty minutes before making up the formula,” she read and then cursed loudly.

What was wrong with these formula people? Didn’t they understand that people had lives to lead, and they didn’t have time to boil a kettle and then wait for thirty minutes?  
Picking up the hot bottle, she screwed on the lid then ran it under the cold tap. She could feel the contents of the bottle cool to her touch, so she opened the bottle and dabbed a few drops on the inside of her wrist like she had seen people in the movies do.  
She immediately wished she hadn’t.

“Holy shit that’s hot!” she yelped, sticking her wrist under the back under the tap. The bottle followed seconds later.

After another five minutes of solid rinsing, Kensi gingerly tried again. This time the formula was tepid.

She hurried back to the bullpen to find a red-faced Deeks pacing up and down with the baby screaming at the top of its lungs.

“What took you so long?” he snapped, grabbing the bottle from her.

“Hey, making that stuff up is harder than it looks!” she snapped back.

“C’mon Annie, take the nice bottle,” Deeks cooed, but the child continued to roar, slapping the bottle away with her tiny fists.

He tried to get the teat into her mouth several times, but the baby wasn’t having any of it. Kensi scanned the bullpen to try and find someone to help them, but when the child started to scream, everybody had melted away. They were on their own.

“Check the book,” Deeks said in desperation. “See what the book says.”

“What book?” Kensi asked, confused.

“The one in the bag on Sam’s desk,” Deeks told her.

Kensi rooted about in the bag and pulled out the copy of Parenting For Dummies.

“I’m not sure whether to be insulted or relieved,” Kensi muttered as she flipped through the pages until she found the section on bottle feeding.

“What does it say?” Deeks asked sounding desperate.

“Okay, okay,” Kensi said, hurriedly skim-reading the chapter. “Try squeezing a drop of milk onto her lips and letting her taste it first, before offering the bottle.”

Deeks carefully shook a solitary drop of milk onto the baby’s lips, but she screwed her little face up tighter and wailed even louder.

“Something else!” he called.

“Try changing the feeding position,” Kensi told him, flipping through the pages. “She might like being held in a sitting position on your lap.”

“Right,” Deeks muttered, sitting in his chair. He moved the baby until she was sitting in his lap, her head propped up by his stomach. He carefully held her in place with one large hand while offering the bottle with another.

“Is it working?” Kensi asked hopefully.

The aggrieved scream from the baby was enough of an answer.

“C’mon Kensi, the book must have something else! It’s for dummies! We’re dummies! It should tell us what to do!” Deeks pleaded, sounding desperate.

Kensi frowned as she read, then re-read a paragraph.

“Take off your shirt,” she said shortly. “She may have nipple confusion.”

Deeks stopped in his pacing and stared at her.

“And how will seeing my nipples will make her any less confused?” he asked, clearly at a loss to what was happening.

“She may be used to being breastfed,” Kensi explained, still reading the book. “The rubber nipple is different to her mother’s.”

“I hate to break it to you Kensi, but my nipples are different from her mother’s,” Deeks said through another indignant wail.

“Not the point, Deeks,” Kensi sighed. “The book says that some babies need to have skin to skin contact when they bottle feed. It reminds them of breastfeeding.”

Deeks opened his mouth to say something, but wisely thought better of it.

“Here, hold her while I take my shirt off,” he said instead, and didn’t wait for Kensi’s reaction before placing the screaming child in her arms.

Kensi looked down at the squirming baby and tried not to panic. She glanced up to see Deeks shuck off his shirt, and she quickly glanced away again. Her partner wasn’t ripped in the way that Jack had been, but his torso had an admirable leanness, with his toned stomach and strong biceps. He had a light dusting of fair hair over his chest that trailed away down to the waistband of his jeans.

“Give her to me,” he said gently, and took the baby back into his arms.

“Try to hold her like her mother would when she’s being breastfed,” Kensi said, turning back to the book. “And then tilt the bottle towards her.”

It took a few minutes of Deeks walking up and down the bullpen and talking quiet nonsense to the baby, but her cries eventually lessened and then stopped. Deeks coaxed her into taking the nipple into her mouth, and she started to suck lustily.

Kensi watched from a safe distance as Deeks continued to spout nonsense at the baby, who stared at him with deep blue eyes. It was like Kensi was seeing a whole new side of him. Yes, alright, she was seeing far more flesh than she usually did, but this wasn’t the flirty, joking Deeks that sat opposite her and made snarky comments about the men she dated. And it certainly wasn’t the intently-focused agent that she trusted to have her back when the bullets inevitably started flying.

This was a new Deeks, a quieter, almost nurturing Deeks, wandering blithely half-dressed up and down the bullpen so a baby would drink her bottle.

Kensi felt a little in awe of him right then, although she’d be loathe to tell him so.

“Hey look at this!” he said, turning to her with real excitement in his eyes. “She’s eating! I got her to eat!”

“Well done,” Kensi said, meaning what she said.

The baby took ten minutes to drain the bottle, and Deeks held it up proudly for inspection.

“All finished!” he proclaimed.

Kensi had been skipping ahead in the book.

“Now you have to burp her,” she reminded him.

“Why can’t she burp herself?” Deeks asked, confused.

“Until they can sit up on their own, babies can’t burp,” Kensi read aloud from the book that she suspected was going to be their bible in the following week. “You have to put her so her head is over your shoulder and then pat her firmly on the back until she burps.”

Deeks looked stricken. “Firmly? How hard is firmly? I don’t want to hurt her, Kens,”

“You won’t,” she assured him. “You won’t hit her hard, Deeks. Just start out by…tapping her. Go from there.”

The baby was starting to get fidgety and red in the face, just as the book said she would.

“Alright then, princess, let’s make you burp,” Deek said, altering the child’s position so her little head was facing over his shoulder. He started to tap her back very gently, but the child just got redder in the face and started to whimper.

“I think you need to do it a little harder,” Kensi advised.

“This seems like child abuse,” Deeks pointed out, but strengthened his taps a little, and when that had no effect, a little more. That worked, as Annie screwed up her face and gave a little wail, then an almighty belch.

“Annie!” Deeks said in surprise. “I’m impressed. That was a hell of a burp, kid.”

Annie gurgled in agreement, then threw up down Deeks’ naked back.

“Oh! Oh Jesus…Oh, Annie, that is gross!”

Deeks’ face was a picture of disgust as he felt the baby vomit trickle down his back.  
“Kensi, quick, take her,” he said, thrusting the baby at her.

“No, you keep her, I’ll get you,” Kensi replied, dancing away. She pulled a packet of wet-wipes from one of the plastic bags and motioned for Deeks to turn around.

“I guess this is why the book said to use a spit-up cloth,” Kensi said by way of apology.

“You could have told me that before Annie went all Linda Blair on me,” Deeks grumbled.

“I’ll add spit-up cloths to the list,” Kensi promised. “Now hold still.”

She laid a hand on Deeks’ side to steady him as she deftly wiped the mess from his back. The solidity of the muscle under her hand surprised her slightly, as did the definition of the muscles in his back. Again, the difference between his body and the body of her last proper lover took her by surprise. Jack had been the product of the Marine Corps own sadistic form of PT, producing a body that was rock-hard, with incredible definition and muscle tone. She’d hated to think of it, but his ass was higher and tighter than hers had been.

Deeks was…different. He was in shape, and if the muscles under her hand were any guide, his body was pretty firm too. But his body was just…more fluid than Jack’s had been. Kensi found herself idly wondering if Deeks would be softer to cuddle with. Sometimes snuggling with Jack had been like trying to get up close and personal with a Greek statue.

She made sure that she wiped up all the baby vomit, and while she was there she quickly wiped the baby’s mouth as well. She couldn’t help but let her fingers stroke the smooth, tan skin of Deeks’ back, thankfully free of any of the back hair that freaked her out so.

“You good there now, Kens?” Deeks asked, his voice sounding a little strange.

“Yeah, yeah,” Kensi said, backing away and hoping that her partner hadn’t noticed her fondling his back.

Deeks stepped away to put Annie back in her carry-seat and pull on his shirt.

“Here are your keys,” Hetty said, appearing behind them, waving two sets of keys. “And your rings.”

“Two sets?” Kensi asked, taking the keys from her and leaving the two familiar turquoise jewellery boxes on the table.

“One set is for the house, the alarm code is etched on the silver ring. Don’t lose it. The other is for your vehicle.”

“We’re not taking the Cadillac?” Deeks asked.

“We’re sure as hell not taking your Malibu,” snorted Kensi.

“It’s for a mini-van,” Hetty told them, with more than a little relish.

“Hetty, I’m not a mini-van kind of a guy,” Deeks began, but Hetty waved him imperiously into silence.

“You’re going to have to go shopping for a lot of bulky items in the next few days, and we can’t afford the security risk that a delivery service would open us up to. The mini-van it is, Mr Deeks.”

“Suck it up, Deeks,” Kensi said gleefully.

“The house has all the basic furniture and bed linens, but there is no provision for an infant. There’s a spare room that is currently empty. Pick out a crib and a changing station tonight on the way to the house so that Miss Tucker has somewhere to sleep tonight,” Hetty told them.

“We’re gonna need more than that, Hetty,” Kensi advised her.

“And you have my permission to buy it. If I were you I’d leave now, while she’s still asleep. Eric has programmed the locations of some suitable stores into the GPS in the mini-van.”

“We’ll check in when we’re at the safe house,” Deeks said, gathering up the baby’s belongings.

“We’ll have eyes on the house tonight,” Hetty told them. “Try and get some sleep, if Miss Tucker will let you. Check in tomorrow morning, and I’ll have a surveillance schedule organised by then. Good luck, Mr and Mrs Jackson. Don’t forget your rings.”

“Can’t forget these,” Deeks said cheerfully. He picked up one of the boxes and opened it, frowning.

“Silver, Hetty? Seems a little…cheap, for Tiffanys.”

“They are made of platinum, Mr Deeks,” scolded Hetty. “Quite in vogue with young, fashionable couples like the Jacksons. Try it on, I had to estimate the size.”

Deeks slid the band onto his ring finger and held it up for Hetty to see.

“Right first time,” he told her, bending his fingers. “It’s heavy,” he said. “Solid. Some might say… slightly constricting.”

Kensi rolled her eyes.

“A wedding band is only constricting to someone who’s afraid of commitment,” she said scornfully. “Ignore him, Hetty.”

Hetty silently handed her the matching box. She flipped the lid open, and her breath caught in her mouth.

“Wow,” Deeks said, peering over shoulder. “That’s a serious rock.”

“It’s a two and a half carat diamond, cut into a heart shape, in a bezel setting,” Hetty lectured. “Elegant and timeless, the heart shape represents the true love that Fern and Thomas Jackson share.”

“I’m Fern now?” Kensi said, glaring at Deeks. “How much did you have to bribe Eric to get that done?”

Deeks said nothing, merely grinned at her.

“It’s also worth fifty thousand dollars, so I’d like you to be very careful with it, Miss Blye,” Hetty said sternly.

Both agents gaped at Hetty.

“A fifty thousand dollar ring? For an op where nobody’s gonna see it?” demanded Kensi.  
“Au contraire, you’re moving into a gated community populated by the wealthy, Miss Blye. You’ll be besieged with neighbours knocking on your door tomorrow morning.”

Hetty smiled at them, a drop of malice evident in the upturn of her mouth.

“You wanted the big house, you get the neighbours too. Don’t forget your wedding band, it matches the ring.”

“Let me get that,” Deeks said quickly, picking up the box. He plucked the slim, elegant platinum band, etched with hearts and sprinkled with tiny diamonds, from its box and took Kensi’s left hand.

“There,” he said happily, sliding the band onto her unresisting finger. “Now we’re man and wife.” He wriggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“Time to kiss the bride?” he asked, sliding an arm around her waist and leaning in close.

“Time to get the mini-van loaded, sweetheart,” Kensi told him, employing the age-old favourite grind of her heel into Deeks’ foot.

“Ah, young love,” Hetty sighed sarcastically, as a limping Deeks started gathering up the plastic bags and Kensi gingerly picked up the baby carrier.

Their bickering followed them out of the bullpen and towards the underground parking garage. The only difference between this bickering and any other, was that this time they kept it to a whisper.

 

“Is the seat in position?” Deeks asked as he climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Yeah, it’s buckled in place,” Kensi told him. “She’s safe. And I’ve picked up our go-bags and put them in the trunk.”

“Good. Let’s hit up some of these baby stores before she wakes up again.”

Kensi nodded in agreement and switched on the GPS unit. She picked the store nearest headquarters and Deeks pulled the minivan into traffic.

Deeks reached out a hand to turn the radio on, but thought better of it as he caught a glance of the sleeping baby in the seat behind him. He stole a look sideways at his partner, who was toying absently with the ring on her finger.

Belatedly, Deeks realised that she had worn an engagement ring once before, back when she had been ready to marry the Marine, Jack. His subsequent PTSD and mysterious disappearance had forced her to put that ring aside.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

“Huh?” she asked, whipping her head around to look at him.

“The ring,” Deeks said, stopping at a set of traffic lights. “Are you alright wearing it? Because you could take it off and just wear the wedding band, nobody would know.”

“I’m fine,” she said shortly, looking back down at her fingers. “It’s just a lot of money to wear on your hand, you know? I’m not the most….” She searched for a suitable word. “Delicate of women. This is a ring for a woman that gets manicures and shops for a living, not me.”

“You don’t get manicures?” Deeks said, trying to lighten the tone. He noted that she was not talking about Jack, and resolved to keep quiet on the matter for now. “I thought all women get manicures.”

“When do I have the time to get a manicure?” Kensi said, exasperated. “We seem to work all the hours of the day. I barely have time to keep doctor’s appointments and buy groceries.”

“You don’t do them at home in front of the TV?” pressed Deeks. “I’ve seen girls do that.”

“I own a pair of clippers and a metal nail file, Deeks,” Kensi said, shaking her head. “I keep my nails short so that I can handle my gun effectively in the field. That’s about all.”

“Hey, I’ve got nail clippers now,” Deeks said brightly. “What with you pledging me your troth and everything. What’s mine is yours, what’s yours is mine.”

“Great, does this mean I have twenty issues of the Silver Surfer and a painting of dogs paying poker now too?” Kensi retorted.

“You can have the picture, but the comic books are mine,” Deeks said firmly. “Damn, should have put that in the pre-nup.”

Kensi flicked a glance at him and smiled, the simple movement lighting up her face. Not for the first time, Deeks felt his heart miss a beat when she gave him a look like that.

“We’re here,” she said, indicating the store up ahead on their right.

“Yeah,” he said, turning his attention away from her and towards finding a parking spot big enough to fit the mini-van in.

With the bare minimum of cursing, they got the carry-seat free from the car and headed into the store. It was massive, more of a warehouse than a normal shop.

“What do you want to do first?” Deeks asked, looking around.

“Furniture,” Kensi said decisively. “That way.”

They headed off in the direction she had indicated.

“There are hundreds of different types of cribs,” Deeks said, confused. “How do we know which is the right one?”

He was right. Some cribs were hand-carved from wood, some were made of metal, some of light-weight plastic. Some cribs rocked gently. Some had bars that moved up and down for easy access. Some even transformed into beds for older children.

“Look over there,” Kensi said. “They have furniture sets. We can get everything in one go.”

“Perfect,” Deeks said, relieved. “How about that one?”

He pointed to a stand where a crib, changing stand, rocking chair and chest of drawers had been ready assembled.

“God no,” Kensi said, staring at it in horror.

“What’s wrong with it?” Deeks asked, taken aback.

“It’s pink,” Kensi said, as if that explained everything.

“Yeah?” Deeks asked, still lost in confusion. “It’s pink and she’s a girl. So?”

“So, just because she’s a girl, it doesn’t mean that everything she owns has to be pink!” Kensi said indignantly.

Deeks looked down at the sleeping child, in her pink sleepsuit, wrapped in a pink blanket.

“I like that one,” Kensi went on, walking further down the aisle.

“It’s got racecars,” Deeks pointed out. “And rocketships.”

“So?” Kensi said, examining the pricetag. “Girls can like racecars and rocketships.”

Deeks looked at her carefully.

“I know about the cars,” he said thoughtfully. “But rocketships? Kensi….are you a science fiction fan?”

“No!” Kensi said immediately, blushing slightly.

“You are, aren’t you,” Deeks went on, beginning to enjoy himself. “You’re a closet sci-fi nerd!”

“Shut up, Deeks,” she hissed, and moved off down the aisle. Grinning widely, Deeks followed her.

“Which one is it for you, Kensi? Original Series or Next Generation?” he teased. “Or are you more Stargate than Star Trek?”

She ignored him, and stopped in front of a more gender-neutral display.

“How about fish?” she said to him. “Any objections to an under the sea theme?”

“Xena: Warrior Princess!” Deeks said, snapping his fingers. “You could totally give Lucy Lawless a run for her money.”

Sighing, Kensi moved away again and thought hard about why Hetty would object to her killing her partner in a baby store.

“Maybe you’re a bit more avant-guard,” Deeks said thoughtfully. “Was it Farscape? Talking muppets? Ben Browder in leather pants?”

“You know an awful lot about the subject for somebody who isn’t a ‘sci-fi nerd’,” Kensi said suddenly, spinning on her heel. “Got any shows you like, Deeks?”

“No,” Deeks said, backtracking immediately.

“No?” Kensi asked, smiling triumphantly. “Then you’ve never asked a girlfriend to dress up like Leia in the slave girl outfit from The Empire Strikes Back?”

“Hah, got you, it was Return of the Jedi,” Deeks said triumphantly, before wincing.

“Hah, got you!” Kensi said, grinning. “Sci-fi nerd!”

“Carrie Fisher was hot,” protested Deeks.

“And you wanted to be Han Solo when you grew up,” Kensi said, sighing.

“Didn’t all little boys?” Deeks said, laughing.

“Some girls, too,” Kensi told him, winking. “He got the cool ship, Leia got to have dumb hair. It’s a no-brainer.”

“I am actually impressed,” Deeks told her honestly.

“Good, because I never had a Chewbacca before. You’ll do nicely,” she teased.  
Deeks did his best Chewbacca imitation, which caused Annie to stir slightly in her carrier.

“Ssh,” Kensi said, laying a hand on his arm. “You’ll wake her up. Come on.”

Two stands later, they found a non-objectionable suite of furniture in solid wood.

“Flatpack,” noted Deeks.

“Easy,” Kensi dismissed.

They flagged down an employee of the store and told them that they’d take the set. He promised to have the boxes ready at the goods entrance and details of their purchase at the register when they finished their shopping.

“What now?” Deeks asked.

“Everything else,” sighed Kensi. “Good thing Hetty didn’t set a limit on that card.”

 

“How can somebody so tiny need so much stuff?” Deeks asked in honest confusion. They had filled one trolley, and Kensi had gone back for another one.

“Most people buy it in stages,” Kensi said, lifting a small plastic bathtub down from the shelf. “Not all at once. It’s probably less scary that way.”

They had more bottles, formula and diapers. Kensi had spotted a bottle-warmer and that had gone in the trolley. Deeks had put in a large activity mat with things that whistled, crinkled and chimed for her to roll around on. There was a mobile with penguins on it that Kensi put into the trolley, along with a mattress and bedding for the crib. They spotted an activity chair that would rock her and give her something to play with. It was massive and took up most of the trolley, but as Deeks pointed out, the baby on the box looked very happy to be in the chair. They also bought rattles and large, coloured pieces of plastic that had packaging that insisted that they were vital for a child’s development.

Annie was too young for a backpack, but she would fit in a baby sling, so they got one of those. They may have gone a little bit mad in the clothing section, but for every feminine, floral, frilly pink dress that Deeks insisted on buying, Kensi would retaliate with dungarees and t-shirts with pictures of trains on them. They both fell in love with the tiny baby Converse, and bought three pairs.

They found special pool diapers and baby flotation seats, and shrugged, dumping them in the second trolley. The house had a pool, and as Deeks insisted, babies needed fresh air. They also needed gallons of baby lotion, talcum powder, wet wipes and shampoo. They bought huge amounts of cotton wool, largely because there were packages of it everywhere, and they reasoned that it had to be useful for something. When they found the spit-up cloths, Deeks put five packages into the trolley with a dark look on his face.

“Are we done yet?” Kensi said at the end of the last aisle.

“Baby monitor,” said Deeks, picking up two different brands from the shelf next to him and comparing the specifications. “And we still need a stroller.”

Kensi groaned and pushed her trolley on down the aisle. At the bottom lay fifty different models of stroller, all expensive, all with their own unique selling points.

“God, it’s worse than buying a car,” Deeks said, staring in disbelief at the wide array of models.

“Let’s just get this over and done with,” Kensi sighed. “How about that one?”

She pointed at an inoffensive beige and black model.

“No,” Deeks said, after taking a moment to look at it. “She’ll be facing the wrong way.”

“What do you mean?” Kensi asked.

“When we’re pushing her, she’ll be facing outwards,” Deeks explained. “I want her to be looking at us.”

“Why?” Kensi asked, bewildered.

“Because…”Deeks started, then paused, looking confused. “Because I do,” he finished. “Plus,” he continued as Kensi moved on to look at another stroller, “Choosing one where she’s facing us means that we can hide her more easily from anyone who may be watching.”

“Whatever,” Kensi said. “Just pick one, so we can pay and get out of here before she wakes up.”

It took another ten minutes for Deeks to find a model that he thought suitable for a man to push through the mean streets of their gated, private community. Kensi was almost at the point of picking it up and battering him with it, but she restrained herself.

“Look, it’s got a matching bag to store all her stuff in, and look, Kensi, cupholders!” he said excitedly.

“I’m in awe of the fabulous stroller,” Kensi said, helping him move stuff around in his trolley so the huge box containing the stroller (home assembly required) would fit. “Can we go now?”

Deeks declared them done, and they made their way to the register where, as promised, the clerk was expecting them. Kensi watched in horror as their purchases exceeded five thousand dollars.

“Hetty’s gonna kill us,” she whispered as Deeks joked with the clerk about the joys of assembling flatpack furniture.

“No limit, remember?” Deeks said dismissively. “She’s cool with it.”

They made their way back to the minivan, three employees carrying various boxes of flat-pack nursery furniture. Kensi busied herself with reattaching the car seat while Deeks and the boys carrying the boxes attempted to play Tetris with their shopping.

Eventually they managed to get everything to fit, and Deeks slid back into the driver’s seat.

“How about some drive-through on the way home?” he asked, starting the engine.

“We should really do some grocery shopping,” Kensi pointed out, looking back over her shoulder at the packed van. “But I have no idea where we would put the bags,” she sighed. “Okay. Drive-through.”

“Do me a favour and get my phone out of my pocket, would you?” he asked, navigating traffic.

“You can’t dial and drive, Deeks,” Kensi said, shocked. “There’s a baby in the car.”

“Which is why I want you to do it for me,” Deeks said patiently. “Left hand pants pocket.”  
Against her better judgement, Kensi leant over Deeks to slide her hand into the tight pocket of his jeans.

“Oh Fern, not in front of the baby, honey,” he joked, and she recoiled and slapped him in the chest.

“Ouch! Okay, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I promise.”

Eying him suspiciously, Kensi leant over again and reached into his pocket. She could feel the phone, but the tightness of his jeans made it difficult to work it loose. Her face was level with his neck, and she couldn’t help but breathe in the smell of him; salt water, cologne and clean sweat, an unmistakable man smell. For a split second she thought of clicking off her seat belt and rubbing right up against him to fill her lungs with that smell, and then she realised what she was thinking and snapped out of it. She eventually worked the phone loose, and sat back on her side of the car, hoping that she wasn’t blushing.

Just basic chemistry, she told herself. Her body was responding to the androtestone in Deeks’ sweat. And her last date had been a few months ago. There was no problem.

“Who do you want me to dial?” she asked, brandishing the phone at Deeks.

“Look for Luigi,” Deeks told her. “And put me on speakerphone.”

She scrolled through Deeks’ extensive contact list until she found the right name. Deeks grinned when an effusive Italian voice answered the phone, and berated him for not coming to see him for many months. When Deeks explained that he and his friend were tired and looking for a take-out meal, the voice told him to come to the restaurant pronto.

The man hung up, and Kensi put Deeks’ phone in her own jacket pocket. She wasn’t about to risk losing her composure again over something as silly as the way Deeks smelled.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“One of my very first undercover jobs was as a waiter in Luigi’s restaurant,” he said, signalling a left turn. “Some very unsavoury characters were using it to organise some pretty nasty crimes, and Luigi turned up one day at the station to report them. He and his wife kind of adopted me.”

He grinned at her.

“I think they were hoping I’d marry their daughter Maria.”

“She had a lucky escape,” Kensi said dryly.

“I never stood a chance,” Deeks said dismissively.

“Ah, a woman of taste and discernment,” Kensi said, nodding seriously.

“You could say that,” Deeks admitted. “She’s also gay, so there’s that too.”

Kensi couldn’t help but laugh, and Deeks joined in.

“I was her beard,” Deeks said proudly. “Until she came out to her parents, anyway. She’s married now,” Deeks continued. “She and her wife help Luigi and Antonia run the restaurant.”  
“That’s nice,” Kensi said, thinking about it. “A real family business.”

“Luigi’s all about family,” Deeks told her. “As long as Maria was ready to give him grandchildren, he didn’t really care how they came into the world.”

“Do they have any children?” Kensi asked as they pulled into the parking lot of a friendly-looking Italian restaurant. There were lots of cars parked, and through the large windows she could see the restaurant was very busy.

“The last time I saw them was at the christening of her second,” Deeks said, killing the engine. “A little boy. Antonio Martin.”

“God, I bet you were strutting around for weeks after that one,” Kensi said, shaking her head in amusement.

Deeks’ retort was cut off by a man bellowing “Marty!” at the top of his voice. Kensi threw an agonised look back at the sleeping Annie, but all she did was twitch a little and open and close her fists.

Deeks got out of the car and made his way over to the man, and was immediately engulfed in a massive hug. A woman, clearly Antonia, was hot on her husband’s heels and did the same thing. Watching from the safety of the car, Kensi saw how genuinely pleased they were to see Deeks, and how happy he seemed to be in their company. She watched them take in the mini-van, clearly full of baby equipment. Deeks gestured at her, and Kensi waved shyly. That was all it took for the couple to descend on the car. She rolled the window down to speak to them.

“Kensi! Such a pretty name!” The man who must be Luigi leant in and gave her two smacking kisses, one on each cheek. “So glad to meet a friend of Marty’s, especially one so pretty.”

“She’s my partner, Luigi,” Deeks said from somewhere behind him.

“And such a pretty baby,” Luigi went on, craning his neck to see Annie. “Such good work you police do.”

Kensi caught Deeks’ eye. Clearly he hadn’t told the whole truth to the couple.

“When you have more time, you come back,” Antonia told them, her arms still around Deeks. “Bring the baby, we have plenty of kids in and out of the restaurant every night.”

“We’ll certainly try,” Kensi hedged, but it seemed good enough for Antonia.

A beautiful woman, dark-haired and olive skinned, emerged from the restaurant. She was carrying several bags worth of food. Kensi caught the smell from the bags and her mouth began to water immediately.

“I didn’t know if you were veggie or not, so I put a little of everything in,” she told Kensi, handing her the bags. “Hi, I’m Maria.”

“Kensi,” Kensi said extending her hand.

“Any friend of Marty’s,” Maria said easily, turning to give Deeks a quick hug.

“We’d better go before the baby wakes up,” he said, sandwiched between Antonia and Maria. He leant down to kiss them both goodbye. “We’ll be back soon, though.”

“Bring the baby!” called Luigi, who pulled Deeks back in for one last bone-crushing hug before letting him go.

They waved them off, and Kensi watched them in her side mirror as Deeks pulled them back into traffic and headed for the safehouse. It was early evening now, and the sun was beginning to set.

“This stuff smells delicious,” Kensi said, poking in the bags.

“Leave it alone,” Deeks warned her. “Half of that is mine and I will fight you for it.”

“It’s that good?” Kensi joked.

“You wait until you try Antonia’s tiramisu,” Deeks said with obvious pleasure. “Orgasmic.”

 

The food had to wait until they had reached the safe house and unload the mini-van. They left Annie dozing in the car as they quickly transferred all of their shopping into the large living room on the first floor.

“The pictures on the database don’t do this place justice,” Deeks panted as they lifted a particularly heavy box into place. “It’s huge.”

“I will never make enough money to live in a place like this,” Kensi agreed, taking in the open-plan kitchen and beautifully landscaped garden visible from the floor-to-ceiling windows at the back of the house.

“You could marry a millionaire,” Deeks told her as they went back out to the car to collect Annie and the food.

Kensi waved her left hand at him. “I think I just did,” she joked.

“Not quite, but Thomas Jackson did make some canny investments in the internet security business,” Deeks said as they brought a sleeping Annie back into the house. “Enough to comfortably support his wife Fern’s dreams of becoming a novelist.”

“A novelist?” Kensi said thoughtfully. “I’ve never been a novelist before. Has she written anything?”

“Not under her own name,” Deeks said mischievously. “But under her alter-ego, Kiki Montrose, she’s written a best-selling line of smutty romance novels.”

“Oh God, say you didn’t,” Kensi groaned, fiddling with the release straps of Annie’s seat.

“It was remarkably easy for Eric to set up,” Deeks said thoughtfully. “I think he has a secret double life.”

“Don’t we all?” Kensi sighed. “Come on. I want to make up more bottles for her before we eat.”

A quick investigation of the kitchen found the kettle, and Kensi boiled it and left the water to cool as she measured powder into six bottles.

“We don’t have to sterilise these because they’re brand-new out of the box,” she told Deeks as he hunted around for plates and forks. “But first thing tomorrow we’re gonna have to figure out how to use the steriliser Callen bought.”

“We’ll have to put her crib together tonight,” Deeks responded, finding a nice bottle of red wine stashed in one of the bags. “And master the fine art of the diaper change.”

He eyed Kensi carefully.

“Unless that’s another skill your dad taught you?” he suggested, aware that he was potentially treading on dangerous ground here. “Or your mom?”

“My mom died when I was six,” Kensi said, facing away from him. Her voice held a note of falseness, as if she was striving for normalcy almost too hard. “She didn’t have time to teach me a lot of girl stuff like that.”

“That’s not very PC, Kens,” Deeks joked, sensing the need to lighten the mood. “It’s the twenty first century now. Men can change diapers and watch ESPN.”

“How many diapers have you changed?” she asked sarcastically, happier on more familiar ground.

“I assisted,” Deeks informed her. “Doris from forensic accounting showed me how to change Annie at the office.”

“Where?” Kensi asked, her face screwed up at the thought.

“On Sam’s desk,” he told her, face absolutely straight.

A small smile broke out on Kensi’s face, and inside Deeks, a little bit of tension he never knew he had released slightly at the sight of his partner happy.

“Come and eat,” he told her. “Annie’s asleep, for now, and that water needs time to cool.”

“I am starving,” Kensi admitted, joining him at the small informal dining table in the large, stylish kitchen.

Maria had packed up enough food for six people in foil-lined trays. It was still warm enough for them not to bother with re-heating, and they piled their plates high.

“Why have you never told me about this place before?” Kensi asked, inelegantly, around a mouthful of the bruschetta she had chosen.

Deeks thought carefully about that as he chewed his calamari, Antonia’s speciality and something he had grabbed and refused to share. Luigi and Antonia had been so good to him during his three month stint with them and in the years afterwards, providing affection and friendship. He was one of several people, mostly young men, that they had informally adopted over the years. He’d almost become one of the family, albeit a slightly distant relative

"It’s special to me,” he said eventually. “Luigi and Antonia…well, they’re really good people. I mean, you find out that the local branch of organised crime is using your place as a rendezvous, chances are you say nothing. Some pretty scary people were hanging out there.”

“But they didn’t,” prompted Kensi.

“No. One day Luigi overheard two of them talk about the possibility of kidnapping the kids of one of their enemies to use as leverage in a land deal gone bad. He flipped. Luigi loves kids. The only real sadness in his life is that Maria is their only child. The thought of knowing that he could have stopped some innocent kids getting caught up in some sick revenge plan was enough to make him come forward.”

“He sounds like a great guy, Deeks,” Kensi said softly.

“Once I started working there, they made me feel so welcome,” he went on, hoping that she would understand. “They’re so caring, such…happy people.”

He finished his calamari and split a package of spicy beef fillet strips and crushed potatoes with Kensi. She took a bite and moaned in a way that could have won her a role in one of the late-night movies he occasionally indulged in when insomnia hit and he’d struck out. Swallowing heavily, he nudged a few more onto her plate.

“You don’t get to meet a lot of good people in our line of work,” she said thoughtfully. He nodded, glad she understood.

“I don’t want them to know about the reality of what we have to do,” he explained. “If I take somebody there and they let something slip…”

“You need that restaurant, and those people,” Kensi said, understanding what he couldn’t seem to put in words. “You need them to look at you and smile and laugh and hug you, because they only see the good side.”

“Yeah,” he said softly, staring at her across the table. “Yeah, that’s it.”

She toyed with the food in front of her before looking him straight in the eye and saying “Thank you. For introducing them to me. For trusting me with that.”

“We’ve been doing a lot better with the whole trust thing, haven’t we?” he said, selecting more food and nearly letting out a porn-worthy moan himself.

“Yeah, I think so,” Kensi said, smiling.

“To trust,” Deeks said, picking up his wineglass and offering it in a toast.

“Trust,” Kensi repeated, clinking the edge of the delicate glassware.

Briefly Deeks wished that he wasn’t eating cooling take-out across a borrowed kitchen table under halogen spotlights. He thought longingly of the quiet, private booth that Luigi always kept for lovers out for a romantic meal, of candlelight and light, unobtrusive music and Kensi in one of those amazing little black dresses that Hetty loved to put her in. Then Annie, who had until now been dozing quite happily in her chair, woke up, and immediately made her presence known with what was, by now, a familiar cry.

“So much for the wine,” Kensi said reluctantly, putting down her glass. “We probably shouldn’t be drinking anyway.”

“I don’t know,” Deeks said, standing and making his way over to the carry seat sat carefully on the breakfast bar. “I get the feeling that alcohol may be the only thing to help us survive this week.”

He unbuckled the baby and lifted her in the air, taking a cautious sniff at her backside.

“Oh yeah, diaper alert,” he said, frowning. “Want to lend a hand, partner?”

“I think I’ll observe this one,” Kensi replied, starting to root through their purchases for the right supplies.

“It’s always best to learn from the master,” Deeks agreed.

Kensi found the padded plastic changing mat and laid it on the breakfast bar.

“I’m gonna need wetwipes, baby powder and a clean diaper,” Deeks said, putting Annie down on her back and hunting for the snaps on her sleepsuit. “She should probably have a new sleepsuit, too.”

Kensi brought the required items over, picking out one of her choices, an all-in-one sleepsuit decorated with sailing ships.

“You’re gonna warp her,” Deeks warned.

“Your face is gonna warp her,” Kensi shot back.

“She’s so lame,” Deeks told the baby, shaking his head sadly. “She doesn’t even know that ‘your face’ jokes are so 2007.”

The baby screwed up her face and wailed louder.

“So, Doris said to slide the fresh diaper under her before you take off the old one,” Deeks said, opening it up and placing it under Annie’s body. “Then you just unfasten the tabs, and lift her ankles up like this.”

He gently held both of the baby’s ankles in one hand and lifted her legs from the ground. Using his free hand he tugged the used diaper away. Both agents recoiled at the sight of the used diaper.

“Wow,” Kensi said, stepping back. “My God, what did she do in that?”

“She’s only had milk,” Deeks said, amazed, holding the used diaper at arm’s length. “What’s she gonna be like when she’s on solids?”

“Luckily for us, we do not have to find out,” Kensi said fervently. “What’s next?”

Deeks gingerly put the filled diaper on the breakfast bar. “We get hold of some bleach and we disinfect this kitchen,” he said with a grimace. “From now on, we only use the changing station for this.”

“Agreed,” said Kensi. “You want wipes?”

“I want hazard pay,” Deeks muttered, but manfully took the clean wipes Kensi passed him.

“Doris said to wipe from front to back,” he told Kensi. “And to get in all the folds of skin.”

“Gotcha,” Kensi said, watching each of his movements carefully.

Deeks put all the dirty wipes on the discarded diaper.

“Now you can put her down on the diaper you laid out earlier,” he demonstrated. “And get busy with the baby powder.”

Kensi flipped open the lid of the bottle and liberally dusted the child’s bottom with the powder.

“Easy,” Deeks cautioned. “That stuff gets everywhere. Sam’s gonna be finding baby powder in his paperwork for weeks.”

Once Annie’s bottom had been dusted, Deeks attached the sticky plastic tapes.

“There,” he said proudly. “One clean baby.”

He carefully removed her sleepsuit and with Kensi’s help, replaced it with the one with sailboats.

Annie had stopped fussing while her diaper was being changed, but the quiet didn’t last long.

“I’ll make up a bottle,” Kensi said, and stepped across to the cooled kettle to pour water into the six waiting bottles.

“You cover your eyes, princess,” Deeks warned, pulling off his t-shirt. “I’m only doing this to help you take your bottle. I don’t want you to see my hotness and imprint on it. I’m too old for you. By the time you’re eighteen I’ll be fifty two, and those sorts of relationships are just creepy.”

Kensi snorted with laughter and shook her head as she came over with a filled bottle.

“Wash your hands before you feed her,” she warned. “You’ve had poop on you.”

“Speaking of poop,” Deeks said, stepping over to the sink while Kensi hovered over the fussing baby, “You know what we forgot to get?”

“No,” Kensi said absently. “An elephant?”

Deeks watched as Kensi cautiously stroked Annie’s hand, her body taut and ready for flight if the baby rejected her tentative advances.

“Diaper bags,” he said. “We bought her a stuffed elephant because you said it reminded you of Sam.”

“You tell him that and you’re a dead man,” she warned and Deeks laughed.

“I’m not that dumb,” he told her, drying his hands.

“We’ll get some when we go shopping for groceries tomorrow,” Kensi said. “Come and feed her, she’s getting all cranky.”

“Tomorrow you have to do this as well,” he warned.

“Yeah, yeah,” Kensi said, waving him away. “While you feed her, I’ll start getting her crib put together.”

Happy with their division of labour, they both separated.

Annie, like before, took a little time to take to the bottle. Deeks paced the large kitchen and through into the living room as she fussed, before latching on to the feed. He watched Kensi slice through the packaging of the crib with a knife he didn’t know she had secreted on her body. After finally deciding that fact was hot, not scary, he went to investigate the back of the house.

He found a bathroom, a utility room, another lounge and through that, the entrance to the sun deck. The door responded to a touch-panel which he hit with his elbow. The door slid noiselessly open and he wandered out onto the wooden deck to take in the landscaped garden lit by an array of tasteful light features. He could hear running water; somewhere down there must be a fountain. He could make out the pool clearly, and brightened when he remembered the flotation device he had insisted on getting.

“See the pool, Annie?” he said, as the baby noisily suckled at the bottle. “Tomorrow you’re gonna wear the awesome pink swimsuit we got you, and we’re gonna play in the pool.”

The baby stared up at him with her big blue eyes and blinked.

“Of course, we’re gonna have to put lots of sunblock on you first,” he conceded. “Can’t give you back to mommy and daddy burned to a crisp.”

He briefly thought about the captain and the commander. Callen and Sam hadn’t called them with an update. He hoped, for the sake of the baby that was now guzzling her bottle, that they had both survived. He and Kensi could play house for a week or so, but the kid needed proper parents, parents that knew one end of a diaper from another. It was getting cooler outside now, so he went back inside the house. Kensi had disappeared upstairs with the contents of the crib box, and was sitting happily on the floor of one of the bedrooms putting it together. She was making good time, and already had it half-finished.

“Piece of cake,” she said nonchalantly, when he complimented her on her speed. “I’ll do the changing stand tonight as well.”

She was as good as her word, and Deeks found himself strangely content as he leant against the wall of Annie’s nursery, holding her bottle as she drained it, watching his partner construct furniture from the weird shapes of wood that surrounded her. This was not the way he thought his Friday night would play out, but right now he couldn’t imagine anything else he’d rather be doing.

Kensi wished that Deeks would take the baby into another room while he fed her. It wasn’t that Kensi disliked Annie (yes, she was petrified of her, but she didn’t dislike her), it was more that watching Deeks calmly prop himself, half-naked, against the wall while he chuckled and cooed at the baby was doing something to her that she couldn’t explain. Deeks shouldn’t be hot, she thought to herself, adjusting the tightness of one of the screws. He was her partner, and lately, her friend. She had to keep him quite firmly in those categories. She managed quite well with the other men at work; Callen was movie-star gorgeous, Sam exuded a dangerous sensuality and even Eric could be considered hot if you overlooked the fact that he dressed in board shorts every day. She had no problems coping with them; why was it that Deeks got under her skin so much?

Maybe it was that damn Athena poster that every girl on base had hanging on her wall growing up, the one with the naked guy and the baby. Kensi had spent a lot of time looking at that when she was younger. And now she had her own, blonder, version in the corner of the room.

But it wasn’t just the baby, she conceded, finishing up the crib and moving on to the changing stand. The very first day that Kensi had run into ‘Jason Wyler’ on an op, something about him had affected her. She’d tried to push it to one side of her brain; she was a professional, and she had a job to do. But he just wouldn’t let it go, always pushing at her and flirting with her. It might be different, she thought wistfully, if he didn’t flirt with everybody else as well. But Kensi had learned a long time ago that hearts broke very easily, and she wasn’t ready to risk hers again.

Not unless there was proof that he truly felt about her the way that she was beginning to suspect she might be feeling about him.

“We’d better check in with Hetty,” Kensi said after a while. “She’ll be expecting us.”

“I’ll do it,” Deeks volunteered. “I need to go and get a spit-up cloth anyway.”

He wandered out of the room and she heard him go downstairs, talking nonsense to the baby as he went. Kensi finished up her DIY and got busy making sure the crib’s bedding was in place. Once she was satisfied that the baby would have a safe and secure place to sleep that night, she went back downstairs to listen in on Deeks’ call to Hetty.

“Kensi’s here now, I’m putting you on speakerphone,” Deeks said, putting the phone down on the table.

“The hospital reports that both Tuckers are still in surgery. Callen and Sam have just made it back,” Hetty told them. “Closer examination of the crime scene indicates that both Captain and Commander Tucker fought back against their assailants. Shell casings found at the scene match two handguns bought by Commander Tucker two weeks ago as well as the assault rifles used by the attack squad.”

“The Tuckers are desk jockeys,” Deeks said thoughtfully. “There was nothing in their jackets about service requiring them to be armed.”

“They’re cryptographic specialists,” Kensi agreed, watching as Deeks attempted to open a plastic package of spit up cloths one-handed. She reached open and yanked it open, passing him one. “Apart from their yearly requalifications, they would have no need to be carrying weapons. Why did the commander need to buy guns two weeks ago?”

“He was expecting trouble,” Deeks said grimly, swinging Annie up over his shoulder and patting her on the back.

“He got it,” Hetty said, her tone equally grim. “Callen and Sam found bags packed in the trunk of the Tucker’s car, one for each member of the family.”

“They were going to make a run for it,” Kensi said, looking at the baby, who let forth a spectacular belch then vomited a little. Deeks stood still, rubbing her back soothingly as Kensi darted forwards to remove the cloth and wipe the baby’s mouth clean.

“But to where, and from who?” Hetty asked, sounding frustrated. “Callen and Sam will be back on the case tomorrow. There should be more news then. How is Anne?”

“Eating,” Deeks said proudly. “And spitting up,” he continued, a little less enthralled. “We had to hit up that credit card pretty hard to get her set up.”

“That’s what it’s there for, Mr Deeks. Be advised that your undercover mission may well be required to last longer than the week we had anticipated. This case is proving odder with each new fact that’s revealed.”

“We’re getting on pretty well over here, Hetty,” Deeks bragged. “We can manage.”  
Kensi was a little less sure, but kept her opinions to herself. Apart from a few on-base babysitting jobs when in high school, she had no experience with infants. Babies were complicated and delicate, and she didn’t know how to deal with one. Her father had prepared her for a lot of eventualities, but motherhood, even a temporary faux-motherhood, was not one of them.

She just didn’t understand how babies worked. They ate, they pooped, they slept. And in between, they cried. How were you supposed to tell if a baby was happy or unhappy, other than by the fact it was crying? And even if it did cry, how were you supposed to tell why it was crying?

Kensi was happier with clearly defined parameters. Babies did not come with a standard operating procedure manual, that much she knew. She got the feeling that the copy of Parenting For Dummies was going to be very well used by the time the op ended. In fact, it might be worth trying to pick up a few more books on their shopping trip tomorrow.  
Hetty hung up and Kensi looked at the vast pile of stuff that was spread around the house.

“We should get this stuff put away,” she said, stifling a yawn.

Annie was already yawning, her eyes opening and closing sleepily.

“Let’s get her put down, and find a place to stick it all,” Deeks agreed. “I think the baby monitors are in that big blue bag.”

He went back upstairs with Annie while Kensi fished around in the blue bag, found nothing, looked in the green one and found the monitors. When she got to Annie’s nursery, Deeks had already laid her on her back and was fussing with the coverlet.

“Do I pull this up?” he asked, looking worried. “Will she choke on it?”

“I don’t think she’ll try and eat it,” Kensi said doubtfully.

“I don’t want her to suffocate in the middle of the night!” Deeks said, sounding slightly panicked. “Or freeze!”

“See what the book says,” Kensi told him, slightly relieved at the fact that he was as clueless as she was.

“The book!” Deeks said happily. “I love that book.”

“Maybe we should get a few more tomorrow,” Kensi said as she opened up the baby monitors and started to slot the batteries into place. “Just to be sure we’re doing this right.”

“Knowledge is power,” Deeks agreed, on his way out of the door.

While he was away, Kensi found herself edging closer to the crib where Annie lay. She was a pretty baby, Kensi acknowledged. Not all of them were; she’d seen enough photos from co-workers to know that although all babies were gorgeous to their parents, there were plenty of unfortunate looking kids in the world. Gingerly she reached out to stroke the baby’s hand, as she had done earlier. This time the baby grabbed her finger, and squeezed it in her tiny fist.

“That’s quite a grip you’ve got there, Annie,” Kensi told the baby quietly.

The baby stared at her, still holding on to her finger.

“I’m…not very good mom material,” Kensi found herself saying to the baby. “I like things that are simple, and babies, well, you’re not simple. But I’m gonna try.”

The baby regarded her with big blue eyes and blew a spit bubble before yawning again.

“Go to sleep,” Kensi said, stroking the baby’s hair. “We’ve got your back, kid.”

 

Deeks paused at the door, watching the scene in front of him.

It hadn’t escaped his notice that Kensi had seemed wary of the baby that day. She had dodged just about every opportunity to hold her, and had positively recoiled when she first started to cry. Yet now she was bent over the crib, talking to the child and stroking her fine, baby-soft hair. He felt proud of the fact that he had noted that first, and the stunning way her jeans clung to her body second.

He’d be the first to admit that he knew nothing about babies, other than that they were adorable and awesome. His life so far hadn’t exactly prepared him for fatherhood; his general view on the subject was that if he made the opposite of his own father’s choices about child rearing, his hypothetical kid might just get to adulthood without any obvious psychological trauma.

But he wasn’t as freaked out by this op as Kensi seemed to be. He knew that she’d rather be with Callen and Sam hunting down the assault team rather than babysitting Annie, but Deeks couldn’t help but feel they’d got the sweet assignment.

They were living in a nice house with all the amenities in a great area, and all they had to do was babysit an adorable little kid. In fact, it was dangerously close to the fantasy that had always been lurking in the back of his mind; a nice home somewhere, with a woman who loved him, despite his fucked up past and crazy job, and a baby or two. Nothing elaborate, nothing glamorous; just the life he had never had and always desperately wanted. This wasn’t his kid, though, and Kensi didn’t love him, not like that. They were friends, now, he thought. More than just partners, anyway.

There were times when his teasing made her blush, stammer or punch him heftily in the shoulder. True, he could live without the punching – she had a remarkably strong punch for a woman, and he’d seen what it did to perps when she didn’t pull it – but he loved it when one of his little flirts hit a nerve. He was positive that if they’d met in any other circumstances they’d have hooked up by now. But then, he supposed, if they’d met in another way, she would have been forced to feed him a cover story, just as he would have done for her. Their lives were full of well intentioned lies. This way, he could be sure that when she chose to disclose something to him, it was the truth.

That was not something that any other guy in Kensi’s life was able to get from her and in a very weird and totally screwed up way, it was almost better than sex.

Almost.

He was positive that sex with an uninhibited Kensi Blye would be off the charts. Why none of the knuckleheads she chose to date could see that made him want to bang his head against a desk. To the best of his knowledge, none of her recent relationships had gone past three weeks. But then the secret caveman inside him danced a little in victory at the thought of not having to share her with anybody else, that he could just rock up to her apartment with a six pack and a stupid movie after a particularly bad day without risking interrupting her getting down and dirty with another guy.

She was always home, always alone, and always looked glad to see him.

Just as he never had any company when she showed up unannounced at his place with turkey burgers and made him watch trashy reality television shows. Sometimes, if they really needed to be cheered up, they’d flick through the channels until they found a police procedural and then happily sit back and criticise the show’s lack of realism.

It was just possible that they were middle aged and married and just hadn’t realised it.

“What does the book say?”

Somewhere in the middle of his moment of clarity, he had missed the fact that Kensi had started talking to him. Perhaps it was because she was still leaning over the crib.

“The book says that we are terrible people for even thinking of using a blanket,” Deeks reported, finding his place in the chapter regarding sleep. “Only evil people that want their babies to suffocate to death use blankets in their cribs. Real parents use sleep sacks.”

“Oh bull,” Kensi snorted. “How do people think babies survived before the invention of the sleep sack?”

“It says we can pull it up to her waist, and tuck it really firmly down underneath the mattress pad,” Deeks said, flipping a few pages. “If she’s a wriggler, it may come loose in the night.”

“I’m sure she’ll have us up at some point in the night,” Kensi said darkly. “We can check then.”

Between them they made short work of the blanket. While he had been downstairs, Deeks had remembered the mobile they’d bought, and Kensi slotted it into place above the crib. Together they stood at the side of the crib, watching Annie stare up at the rotating penguins above her head.

“How long do babies take to go to sleep?” Deeks asked, keeping his voice low.

“I have no idea,” Kensi whispered back, still looking at the baby. “She’s slept a lot today. Do you think she’ll sleep now?”

Annie yawned, but stayed resolutely awake.

“Should we just leave her?” Kensi asked doubtfully. “That seems a little…mean.”

“Yeah,” Deeks said, clearly uneasy at the thought. “She’s yawning. It won’t be long. Maybe we should just…wait.”

“Okay,” said Kensi, sounding a little relieved.

Annie stared up at the mobile, a little frown line forming as she studied the dancing penguins. Deeks and Kensi stood in a companionable silence, staring down at her.

“They must have been desperate,” Kensi said eventually, her voice soft. At Deeks’ questioning look, she said, “The Tuckers, I mean. Whatever trouble they were in, whatever made Commander Tucker buy those guns and take so much leave, it must have been big.”

“He must have wanted to stay close to his wife and daughter,” Deeks mused. “Understandable.”

“Captain Tucker had a c-section,” Kensi said suddenly. “It was in her file. That’s a pretty major surgery. Even now she wouldn’t be properly healed.”

“Double worry for the Commander,” Deeks said, nodding. “His wife is at half-strength, and probably scared out of her wits about…whatever was going on. They’ve got a three month old baby and no back-up in LA.”

Kensi shook her head. “I cannot imagine what being a parent feels like,” she confessed. “All that responsibility, all that pressure.”

“All that love,” Deeks said, nudging her with his elbow. “All that joy. Parents create life, Kens. Crying, screaming, pooping life. They find someone they’d like to mix their DNA up with and then they bring life into the world. They don’t have to wonder about what they achieved with their time on this planet. They can point to their kid and say ‘There you go, right there. That’s what I did, and it’s awesome’.”

“You’re a bit of a romantic at heart, aren’t you,” she said quietly, catching him with a look that revealed far more than Deeks thought she realised.

“Very much,” he said honestly, staring right back into those exotic, mixed-tone eyes. “Otherwise, what’s the point? Why do we do what we do if not so people can just get on with falling in love and raising their kids in safety?”

“I…I’d never really thought about it like that,” she admitted, smiling that secret half smile that Deeks guarded preciously as his own, personal, not-to-be-shared Kensi-smile.

“Well, the whole secret-agent-saving the-world thing is kinda cool too,” Deeks admitted, knowing that it would make her laugh. “And sometimes Eric hooks up his Wii to the big board in ops and we have killer games of Mario Kart. But mainly it’s protecting the public.”

She sighed, exasperated, but her look was one of fondness that he didn’t see that often. After a long moment of staring into each other’s eyes they were distracted by the baby, who waved her fists at them. Embarrassed, they broke their eye contact and looked down at her.

“What do you think she wants?” Kensi asked, confused. “She’s not hungry, she has a clean diaper...”

“Maybe it’s the bunny?” Deeks asked, shrugging his shoulders. “Callen said he found it in her crib.”

“Isn’t she a little young to have a favourite stuffed animal?” Kensi wondered.

“Maybe it smells familiar,” Deeks hazarded. “Anyway, it can’t harm to try.”

“It’s in the pink bag,” Kensi told him. “With the insect net.”

Deeks left the room, bounded downstairs and started to rifle through the pink bag. Kensi was right; the clearly well-loved toy had been put under the netting. He brought it back up to the nursery and placed it at the side of the crib, in Annie’s eyeline but out of her reach.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Kensi said in admiration five minutes later. “It was the bunny.”

“We need to remember that,” Deeks said as they left the room, snagging one of the monitor units on the way out. “Have the bunny on us at all times.”

“And buy nappy sacks and bleach,” Kensi reminded him.

“Also more baby books,” Deeks countered.

They cleared up the kitchen, refrigerating the food that would keep and picking at that which had to be eaten immediately. They split a large portion of tiramisu, which was indeed the best Kensi had ever tasted. They sorted the baby gear into piles, and stored it in appropriate places – guest bathroom for Annie’s bathtub and cleaning accessories, the baby’s bedroom for the diapers and her clothes, the living room for the toys they had bought, the utility room for everything else.

They called in to the NCIS switchboard to confirm that the outside surveillance team was in place; the operator patched them through to the two agents who had drawn the short straw, who confirmed that they had a visual on the house and real-time satellite images of the surrounding area. Everything looked clear.

“We’ve done all we can tonight,” Deeks said, stretching his arms above his head and yawning. If he had turned his head to the left instead of the right, he would have missed his partner surreptitiously checking out the exposed skin over his hipbones. But, he didn’t.

“We should go to bed,” he said levelly, grinning at her.

The brief look of panic in her eyes was hysterical.

“There are three spare bedrooms upstairs,” she said calmly, although he could see how her neck was tense. “Pick whichever one you want.”

“Don’t you think we should share?” he asked innocently. “We are supposed to be a married couple, after all. It would help sell our cover.”

“I don’t think we need to go that far,” she said sweetly. “I could say that I’ve kicked you out to the spare room because we’re arguing, should anyone ask. Which, I guarantee, they won’t.”

“Alright dear,” he sighed, mischief managed. “Whatever you say. I’m a married man now, I need to get used to saying that.”

“I’ll take the monitor tonight,” Kensi offered, going with the familiar tactic of ignoring him and hoping he would stop. “You’ve done a lot with her today. I can get up if she cries.”

“Okay,” Deeks said, a little touched at the gesture. “But you wake me up if you need help.”

Kensi nodded and picked up the monitor unit. They had set it to the highest possible volume, and Annie’s quiet, regular breaths had provided an unusually relaxing counter-point to their conversation. Kensi chose the bedroom next door to Annie’s, so she could get to her quickly when she woke. Deeks chose one further down the corridor. They said their goodnights softly, for fear of waking the child.

 

Kensi managed a few hours sleep before an unfamiliar noise woke her. It took her a few seconds to process where she was, and where the noise was coming from. Annie was grumbling, making the funny noise that had preceded all her crying spells that day.

Kensi swung her legs out of bed and headed for the door. She was glad that her go bag had included a set of short pyjamas; she usually didn’t bother wearing anything to bed, not in sunny southern California, but she got the feeling that there would be a lot of traipsing about at night in her near future.

In the nursery, Annie was flailing about under the blanket, her small forehead creased with annoyance at being unable to move.

“Hey Annie,” Kensi said softly, looking at her watch in the light from the window. It was three in the morning, and the baby had slept for five hours. “I bet you’re hungry again.”  
Steeling herself, Kensi lifted the blanket from the baby, then used it to wrap around her as she picked the child up. Annie stopped grumbling for a few seconds to stare at Kensi, her little eyes wide.

“Yeah, I’m not the other guy,” Kensi told the child, feeling a little stupid for talking to the baby when she clearly couldn’t understand a word the woman was saying. “He’s taken point today, so I’m his backup. Let’s give him some beauty sleep, yeah?”

Keeping up a gentle commentary on the state of the op so far kept the baby from making too much noise as Kensi headed downstairs to the kitchen. Before they had headed to bed, she had opened up the bottle warmer and plugged it in to an outlet. It took less than a minute for the machine to gently warm one of the bottles she had made earlier up to a suitable temperature. Awkwardly, Kensi tested the milk before offering the bottle to Annie. It was indeed just warm enough to be palatable to the baby.

“Here we go,” Kensi said softly, holding the bottle to the baby’s lips. “Time to eat, Annie.”

But, as usual, the baby didn’t want to take the teat of the bottle. She started to protest, batting the rubber nipple away with her hands and crying loudly.

“Ssh,” Kensi pleaded, walking her through the house. “Ssh Annie, you’ll wake Deeks up.”  
And he’ll see what a failure I am at doing even the most simple thing with you, she thought, annoyed with herself.

It was the thought of her partner that gave her an idea. It had worked for Deeks, after all, and there was nobody around to see what she was doing.

“Okay Annie,” Kensi whispered, laying the child down safely on the sofa, away from the edge. “This is gonna be our little secret, okay? No telling the guy with the funky hair.”

Kensi pulled her t-shirt up and off, her skin immediately reacting to the coolness of the large living room. She could feel goosepimples prickle up straight away, from both the temperature and the possibility that Deeks could wake up and find her sitting there topless.

A slight noise made her turn her head sharply, back towards the stairs, but there was nothing there. Just her nerves playing tricks on her, she concluded.

She picked the baby up again, careful to allow Annie’s face to press against the bare flesh of her breast. The baby quietened and strained to reach Kensi’s nipple.

“Oh no,” Kensi said in amusement. “Nothing there for you. Try this instead.”

She shook a few drops of the milk onto the baby’s lips, and after a short time, Annie accepted the bottle.

The feeling of triumph and success surprised her with its intensity. Kensi grinned at Annie as the child suckled greedily. Kensi remained seated while the baby fed; Deeks may be happy to walk around as he fed Annie, but Kensi wasn’t that confident. She pulled one of the throw cushions on the sofa into a better position and used that to support Annie’s head and her arm as she patiently waited for the baby to finish eating.

Kensi decided not to risk burping Annie while wearing her t-shirt. Still half naked, she walked carefully to the utility room and found one of the spit up cloths. With it draped over her shoulder she moved Annie into position and began to pat her back. Deeks had been right; patting Annie firmly enough to bring up her wind felt strange. She supposed that with Deeks’ superior strength, it would have been more awkward. Annie belched with her usual vigour, and Kensi was pleased to note that this time she didn’t follow through with a little baby sick.

“You can throw up on him anytime you want,” she confided to the baby. “Just not on me, okay?”

After successfully managing a feed, Kensi wondered if she should attempt to change Annie’s diaper. A quick sniff test didn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary, and Annie didn’t seem unhappy. It took another half an hour for the baby to go to sleep again, during which Kensi paced the floor of the kitchen and living areas a lot. She couldn’t remember any fairy tales, so she recounted old missions to the baby instead, who gurgled quietly and grabbed hold of her hair. She eventually quietened and slipped back to sleep, and Kensi took the opportunity to put her back into her crib, tucking the blanket firmly around her waist as the book told her to do.

She waited for a moment, just to check that the baby was still asleep, but it looked like she had done her job well. Annie was, for now, sound asleep. Kensi felt a brief burst of pride that she had coped with the task, then and then rolled her eyes at her own stupidity. She’d done far more impressive things than feed a baby before. Men and women did that all over the world and didn’t think twice about it. But that fact didn’t stop her feeling good about what she had achieved – she had dealt with all of Annie’s issues without needing to ask Deeks for help. She’d kept up her end of the bargain and let him sleep through the night. She was pulling her weight in this unusual and discomforting mission, and that was enough to make her happy.

She fell asleep again almost as quickly as Annie had.

 

The noise of Annie whimpering had woken him up, even though he had shut the door to the large bedroom he’d chosen. It was only when he heard Kensi’s door click open and shut that he realised what had happened.

He punched his pillow and tried to get back to sleep. Kensi had volunteered for this shift, and it sounded like she was on the case. However, despite closing his eyes and pulling the covers back up over his chest, he didn’t immediately fall back asleep. When he heard the nursery door open and Kensi’s soft footsteps trail away downstairs, he let out a deep sigh.  
He knew that she could handle giving the kid her bottle, but her feelings about the baby had been made pretty clear. They freaked her out a little. Although nothing would sort that out better than experience with one, Deeks didn’t feel he could expect Kensi to cope with a night feed on her own.

He’d go down to offer moral support, he figured. She could do the actual feed, but he’d hover in the background and help out. He was awake now, anyway. One of the down sides of so much undercover work was that sleeping in a new bed left him restless and prone to waking early and often. He was surprised that he had managed the three hours he had snatched.  
He slipped down the stairs quietly, trying not to alarm Kensi by making too much noise. He saw her pacing up and down with Annie, trying to convince her to take the bottle, but the kid was stubbornly refusing.

“Alright,” Kensi sighed, putting Annie down carefully on the couch, far away from the edge. “This is gonna be our little secret, okay? No telling the guy with the funky hair.”

Deeks raised his eyebrows at that, but what Kensi did next made him actually let out a surprised squeak. She lifted the large, faded t-shirt she’d been wearing and slipped it off completely, revealing the best pair of breasts Deeks had ever seen up close. Whether they were objectively lovely breasts, or whether he admired them because they belonged to Kensi, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he got a sudden pang of jealousy at the thought of Annie being cuddled close to them, and not him. Let’s face it, there was nothing that Kensi’s breasts could do for Annie, but he could think of seven or eight things he’d love to do with them, just off the top of his head.

His stupid noise drew Kensi’s attention; she turned her head sharply, her long wavy hair tumbling around her shoulders. She peered straight at the pillar that Deeks was currently standing behind.

An agonisingly long moment later, Kensi must have concluded that there was nothing there, because she picked up the fussing baby, teased her about reaching for Kensi’s nipple and finally got her to take the bottle.

Kensi sat still on the sofa while Annie took her feed, her long, bare legs curled up underneath her and her long, brunette waves tickling the space between her shoulder blades. In the dim light provided by the full moon through the floor-to-ceiling windows, it was possible for Deeks to lose sight of the small sleep-shorts she was wearing and imagine her completely naked.

God, but she was gorgeous. He’d always known she was gorgeous, couldn’t get over his good luck at ending up partnered with the hands-down hottest woman in law enforcement, but right there, in the moonlight, sleepy and dishevelled and with a hungry baby in her arms, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Deeks rested his forehead against the pillar and breathed deeply as he realised just how bad he had it for her, and the myriad ways that the whole situation could go horribly wrong.

And, if he were very lucky, perhaps far luckier than he deserved, the ways that it could go right.

When Kensi rose to find a cloth to burp the baby, he took the opportunity to slip back upstairs and get back into bed.

He knew that he should tread very carefully now; a lot was at stake: her career, his career, his future at NCIS, the team dynamic. And if they didn’t work out, there was also the wrath of Hetty to consider, which was subtle and sneaky and utterly, pants-wettingly terrifying. Not to mention the wrath of Callen and Sam, who loved Kensi as a friend and younger sister and who would have no hesitation about turning him into mulch if he put a foot out of line.

Not that Kensi wouldn’t do it first, he reflected with a fond smile. The smile dimmed as he considered her chequered romantic past. She’d been hurt before; he knew she didn’t blame Jack for leaving her, she understood that PTSD patients had no control over their emotional responses. But the way he did it, abandoning her in the night to wake alone and confused on Christmas morning, had to have left her with more than her share of issues.

If he was going to do this, he was going to have to commit. No freaking out. He’d have to be calm and prepared to do all of the legwork to convince her he was serious.

Never for one minute did he wonder if it was worth the trouble it would no doubt cause. There was no question in his mind that his life would be infinitely better if Kensi was in his home and his bed instead of just being in his heart.

Now would be the ideal time to start laying the groundwork, he realised as he stared up at the ceiling. They were going to be living together, away from work with no other distractions than a cute baby. He wished he’d put more time in at the gym recently; he peered down at his abs, which although present, weren’t as defined as they could have been.

But, he remembered with satisfaction, they had seemed good enough for Kensi to check out earlier. And when she had cleaned him up back in the bullpen, her hand had lingered on his back for far longer than strictly necessary.

He heard Kensi coming back up the stairs and yawned. In the morning, he thought sleepily. He’d start his plan later, in the morning.

Noises from downstairs woke him at about seven in the morning – clattering of pans and music from a radio. He checked in on Annie in the nursery, to find that she was missing from her crib. The changing station held an inexpertly rolled-up diaper and was covered in baby powder, so he surmised that Kensi must have tried a diaper change on her own.  
Impressed, Deeks made his way downstairs, through the light and airy hallway and into the main living area where Kensi had unknowingly blown his mind the night before. All the noises came from the kitchen area, so he headed back there.

Annie, dressed in tiny baby-sized jeans and a white t-shirt with a duck on it, was lying in the playpen. She had her arms tucked in by her stomach, and was pushing her head off the ground in what Deeks’ yoga in the park instructor would have termed a classic cobra pose. That surprised him; he hadn’t realised Annie could do that. But then, he supposed, she had spent most of yesterday either being carried or strapped into a car seat. Annie paid him no attention at all; her sights were set on the old raggedy bunny from her crib that Kensi had thoughtfully placed in the playpen just ahead of her. Annie was making little grunts of effort as she tried to commando crawl towards the bunny.

Feeling sorry for her, Deeks leant over to move the bunny closer to her, but Kensi, quick as lightening, rushed over and grabbed his arm.

“No!” she said indignantly. “The book says we have to encourage her to develop her gross motor skills.”

“And good morning to you, Kensi,” Deeks said, removing his hand from the playpen. “And don’t call Annie gross. She can hear you.”

Kensi refrained from answering him, but she shot him a look of impatience.

“Good job on getting her dressed,” he said, actually impressed.

“I changed her diaper too,” Kensi said proudly.

“Has she eaten?” Deeks asked.

“No,” Kensi replied. “I…”

Whatever she was about to say next was cut off as Deeks decided to start Operation Romance Kensi.

“No problem,” he said smiling. “I’ll do it.”

He pulled his t-shirt off and wandered over to the fridge where Kensi had stored the made-up bottles of formula. He selected one and moved to the bottle warmer, looking at the contraption carefully.

“You use it like this,” Kensi explained, taking the bottle from him. Deeks stood close, ostensibly to watch the procedure, but really so he could allow his arm to brush lightly against hers. Kensi liked her personal space, so he was interested to see what would happen. She jerked away immediately, although she kept up her steady stream of instructions without a hitch. But then a strange thing happened and she drifted back against him.

It wasn’t much; a casual touch of arm against arm. As potentially flirtatious movements went, it barely registered. But for Kensi, that was…alright, not a big deal, but definitely a medium-sized one. The only times she usually touched him were either to hit him, tow him from the room or save his life.

Deeks allowed himself a moment of victory, and then went to feed the baby.

“I’m trying to find something for breakfast,” Kensi told him, poking through the cupboards. “But I think the only food in the house is left over from last night.”

“Good as their food is, I’m not sure that I want leftovers for breakfast,” Deeks said, peering in the fridge. “We’ll go out somewhere.”

“I haven’t been out for breakfast since…” Kensi began, then shook her head. “For a long time,” she finished.

“Well, I need to shower and change, and we need to put the stroller together, but after that we can go out and grab some breakfast, and then go get whatever we need,” Deeks said, planning out their day.

“I’ll phone in to Hetty, let her know what the plans are,” Kensi offered, and went off to do that. She reappeared ten minutes later.

“Hetty says good morning, and has reminded us that babies need mental and physical stimulation. Apparently we didn’t buy her enough stuff yesterday,” Kensi told Deeks, shaking her head. “Hetty’s making us find her more stimulating toys.”

“She’s three months old,” Deeks said in amusement. “How much stimulation does she need?”

“Hetty suggested the Baby Einstein DVDs,” Kensi told him, jotting them down on a list she had started of groceries and other necessities.

“Don’t you find it a little weird that Hetty’s blowing the budget on what is essentially an undercover babysitting op?” Deeks wondered. “I’m not saying that I don’t appreciate the sweet house and getting to play with the black credit card, but…”

“But she could have stuck us in a Motel 6 for a week with basic cable and a couple of rattles for Annie,” Kensi finished. She scribbled something else on the paper. “It’s not typical Hetty behaviour, that’s true.”

“So we’d better make the most of it!” Deeks said, grinning. “I know a great café on the beach. Best eggs for miles around.”

“The protection detail will stay at the house and monitor here, we’ll have no back up when we leave,” Kensi said. “Hetty didn’t think it was necessary, she said that the strike team were after the Tuckers, not Annie.”

“I think she’s right,” Deeks said. “If they had wanted to kill her, they would have.”

They fell silent as they watched the baby drink the last of the bottle.

“If anyone threatens her, I’m going to gut them like a fish,” Kensi said simply, stroking Annie’s forehead gently. “And I’m just the babysitter. Can you imagine how the Tuckers felt when they saw the strike team come through the front door?”

“It’s why they fought so hard,” Deeks said sombrely. “It’s why we’re more than just her babysitters. We have to keep her safe until the Tuckers come out of hospital.”

Panic flared in his eyes. “What did Hetty say about the Tuckers?”

“She said that they both made it through surgery, but they’re in ICU. They had some pretty severe injuries. They haven’t woken up yet.”

“They will,” Deeks said resolutely. “I know it. And when they do, we can give Annie back to them, safe and sound and a few pounds heavier.”

“And the proud owner of a hundred Baby Einstein DVDs,” Kensi said, a small smile on her lips. “Here, give her to me. I’ll burp her, you go shower.”

Kensi had already put a spit-up cloth over her shoulder, and Deeks left her standing in the middle of the kitchen, patiently encouraging Annie to bring up her wind.

His room had a small en-suite bathroom, so he showered using the small toiletries that NCIS left the place stocked with. He hadn’t thought to put any of his usual gear in his go-bag, which also showed him to be woefully understocked in the clothes department. He had one clean pair of underwear and one clean t-shirt. Clearly Annie wasn’t the only one that needed new clothes.

By the time he had got back downstairs Annie was back in the playpen, intent on reaching the bunny. Kensi had put her further away from it than she had been before, and Deeks took pity on the baby and nudged the bunny a little closer to her.

“I know you’re helping her,” Kensi called from the living area. “Stop cheating.”

“Your lies wound me,” Deeks called back. “Shots to the heart, all of them.”

“Just pack a bag for her, would you?” Kensi said, a touch of humour showing through her exasperated tone.

“Alright,” Deeks called back, looking around the kitchen. “What does she need, lipstick, cell phone, credit card…”

Kensi’s sigh was audible. “Look in the book,” was all she said.

“I love this book,” Deeks muttered to himself, flipping through the pages. “Right, baby travel essentials…”

He took the three remaining bottles, warmed them, then put them in the heat-retaining pouches they had bought at the baby store the previous day. The book advised one diaper per two hours that you planned to be out of the house, so Deeks grabbed four, then one more for luck. Wipes and powder came next, and he wished they had thought to buy smaller, travel-sized packages. He put some pacifiers on the counter, along with a sunhat and one of the small, noisy toys from a set that advertised itself as “fun, stimulating play!” The stroller bag, which Kensi had helpfully thrown into the kitchen for him, already had a changing pad in it, which was good because they’d only bought one the day before.  
They didn’t have any ziplock bags for dirty diapers, so Deeks added that and sunblock to Kensi’s list on the counter. He packed a few changes of clothes – some of his choice of pretty pink dresses, just to annoy Kensi – and some bibs and burp cloths. A blanket went into the bag, as did a few more small toys.

They still didn’t have half the stuff the book recommended – tissues, bottled water, cartons of pre-made formula, hand sanitizer, baby Tylenol – but Deeks thought that they could probably cope for today with what they had.

“No wonder women carry their lives around with them in their purses,” Deeks muttered as he packed the bag. “They start young.”

Deeks had seen mothers tote these large bags around with them, but he had never given much thought to how much the things weighed.

“I’m all done with the stroller,” Kensi reported. “My God,” she said, stopping dead in her tracks. “What have you got in there?”

“Just what the book told me to,” Deeks said defensively. “And we haven’t got everything the book says we need.”

“She’s so small,” Kensi said in awe. “How come she needs so much stuff?”

“One of life’s eternal mysteries,” Deeks said, deadpan. “Now come on, I want breakfast.”

Annie went into her carry seat without complaint, the old bunny firmly tucked in with her. Deeks wrestled the stroller into the minivan, and had to admit to himself that as seriously uncool as these things were, parents definitely needed the space.

When they got there the café was only half-full, mainly with young singles grabbing a quick bite on their way to work. Their first problem came when the stroller was too big to fit through the maze of tables easily, and they annoyed several patrons by having them move to let them pass by.

Several snarky comments about the inconvenience of babies followed them to their booth in the corner, a semicircular affair in cool maroon leather. Deeks let the snide remarks roll off his back, but Kensi got a funny look in her eye. She had a tight-lipped smile on her face as they sat down, and deliberately moved the stroller so Annie was facing away from the impolite customers.

As they were perusing the menus, Annie got a little fussy. She wasn’t crying, but making the unhappy noises that the two agents had quickly learned immediately preceded a full-on wail. Some customers looked at the stroller in disgust, and made audible comments about “babies ruining the atmosphere”.

“I’m gonna ruin their atmosphere,” Kensi muttered, sliding out of the booth.

“Easy, tiger,” Deeks said, reaching out and tugging her back into her seat. “It’s not worth blowing our cover over. Pass me Annie.”

Still muttering under her breath, Kensi released Annie from the stroller and passed her to Deeks. She immediately stopped grizzling.

“See, all she wanted was to see what’s going on,” Deeks said, making Annie’s bunny dance in front of her. “Look at the bunny, Annie! Look at the bunny!”

An older waitress made her way to the table, and beamed at the baby.

“What a cutie-pie!” she said, smiling at Deeks.

“Well, thank you,” he said modestly.

“Ignore him,” sighed Kensi. “Lord knows, I do.”

“She looks like both of you!” the waitress said. “Daddy’s eyes and Mommy’s hair.”

“Thanks, Sandy,” Deeks said, catching a look at the name badge on the waitress’ blouse. “That’s a very kind thing for you to say, isn’t it Mommy?”

Kensi’s smiled looked genuine, but the kick she gave his ankle under the table was really heartfelt.

“I’ll have the fruit salad, please, and vanilla yoghurt,” Kensi told the waitress. “And coffee.”

“And I will have scrambled eggs, Canadian bacon, sausages and home fries,” Deeks said. “In fact, make that a double serving of home fries because my wife will end up stealing most of mine.”

“I will not!” Kensi said, reacting first to his (largely inaccurate) prediction first and his casual mention of her as his wife second. Alright, there had been that one time when she had taken a few of his fries one day at lunch, but he had just jogged her elbow and made her drop the rest of her hot dog. The fries had been recompense.

Sandy just chuckled, obviously taken with Deeks.

“A double order it is,” she said, winking. “And can I get anything for the little one?”

“She’s not on solids yet,” Deeks said, smoothing Annie’s hair. “And she had a big bottle just before we left the house, didn’t you Annie?”

Both he and the waitress stared adoringly at the baby as if they expected her to respond. Instead, she crammed her fingers in her mouth.

“Oh, she’s just adorable,” Sandy gushed again. “You hold on, I won’t be long with your food.”

“See?” Deeks said quietly as the waitress bustled away. “Not everybody is going to be nasty about Annie.”

“Shut up,” Kensi said, slightly embarrassed.

Deeks busied himself with playing with Annie while Kensi stared around the room. She was surprised to note just how many admiring glances Deeks was getting from women of all ages. She looked back at her partner, and tried to see him as the other women did.

His hair had dried from the shower, settling in its usual manic, floppy style that really suited him. She’d seen one picture of him with it short, for his official police photograph, and it hadn’t looked as good. His face was all planes and angles, she noted. The softness of the hair diffused that. He was wearing a plain white T-shirt, with a slightly lower than usual v-neck. The colour suited him; the plainness of the white made his surfer’s tan glow and his eyes pop. He and Annie did have similar colour eyes – a strong blue, not the wishy-washy kind that faded to grey. He was smiling at Annie, telling her a nonsense story, and it made his whole face light up.

He was, in fact, a very good-looking man.

This wasn’t exactly a surprise to Kensi; although he didn’t fit her ideals of a handsome man, she couldn’t deny that her partner was attractive. But what did surprise her was her reaction to the stares he was unaware of getting. She eventually identified her emotion as jealousy. All the women in the café were checking out her partner, and she was jealous.  
Well.

That would take some careful thought. If you added that to the fact that she genuinely liked him, thought of him as a friend, cared about him…

And there was also the undeniable fact that she’d actually fondled his back yesterday, under the pretence of cleaning him up…

Oh wow.

Kensi sat back in her chair, a little shocked. Why hadn’t anyone told her that she was kind of, almost, pretty much probably falling in love with her partner?

That was the problem with working with men, she thought grimly. They didn’t do mushy emotional stuff. She didn’t know Nell well enough to have girl-talk with her, and Hetty…well, Hetty was just a little bit too frightening to talk to about stuff like this. And also her boss.

Kensi smiled at the realisation that Deeks would be the one that she would turn to if she needed to talk to someone about this. The irony amused her.

“Here we go!” said the effusive Sandy, who was back with a large tray.

“Coffee, yoghurt and fruit salad for you,” Sandy told Kensi with a wink, placing the bowls in front of her. “Bacon, sausage, eggs and a double helping of home fries for you, and another coffee. Just call if you need anything.”

“Give her to me,” Kensi said. “Your food will go cold if you don’t start soon.”

“Thanks,” Deeks said, passing Annie over.

He started to eat, a look of bliss crossing his face. Kensi balanced Annie in the crook of her arm, and managed to spear a few strawberries for herself. She found herself eyeing the heaped plate in front of Deeks, and her stomach rumbled treacherously. The fruit would have been fine for breakfast, if he hadn’t gone and ordered those damn potatoes.

“Go on,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “You know you want some.”

“I don’t,” she lied immediately.

“I ordered them specially for you,” he said, grinning. “I know you, Fern Jackson, you can’t resist fried potatoes.” He forked some up and held them out to her.

“No!” she said, blushing slightly.

“C’mon,” he laughed, waggling the fork a little.

Sighing heavily, Kensi reached out to take the fork from him, but he shook his head.

“No,” he said stubbornly. “Open up.”

“I’m not a baby!” Kensi hissed.

“No, you’re my wife and we’re having a romantic breakfast out with our new baby, and this is cute newlywed behaviour, so, Fern, open your mouth,” he insisted.

He slid around the booth until he was sitting next to her. Sighing heavily, she did as she was told and he triumphantly slid the fork into her mouth.

“Oh God, these are heavenly,” Kensi said in surprise, when she’d finished chewing.

“I knew you’d like them,” he said triumphantly. “Here, have some more.”

“I can feed myself,” she protested. But he would hear none of it.

“It’s selling our cover,” he insisted, moving even closer and draping an arm around her shoulders.

“How can we be newlyweds if we have a four month old baby?” Kensi asked as he speared more potatoes. “And I want to try the eggs.”

“That’s a little bit old fashioned of you, isn’t it?” he teased, obediently abandoning the potatoes for the eggs. “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Fern with a baby carriage?”

“Well, maybe I’m old fashioned when it comes to this,” Kensi said, indicating Annie with a sweep of her free hand.

“We’re newlyweds because Annie wasn’t a planned baby,” Deeks said, delivering the eggs to her. “You didn’t want me to think that you were trapping me into wedlock because of my enormous personal fortune, so you nobly refused my many offers of marriage.”

“Maybe I thought that you wouldn’t be a very good father,” Kensi said, playing along. “Always tied up with your business, partying hard whenever you could. And I was just one of a long line of girls.”

“That’s what I wanted you to think,” Deeks said dismissively, feeding her more potatoes. “I thought you’d be impressed by a fast lifestyle, when all I ever wanted was to settle down and have kids.”

“You must have been devastated when I cut off all contact with you,” Kensi teased. “When I decided I was going to raise Annie on my own. The eggs were good, let me try the bacon.”

“I thought I’d go mad with worry,” Deeks agreed, slicing off a section and holding it up to Kensi’s lips. “I would sit outside your tiny apartment and watch you leaving for work at the strip club, wondering how you’d make your money now you were beginning to show…ouch!”

Kensi had kicked him in the ankle again.

“I did not work at a strip club!” she insisted. “Just for that I want that sausage.”

“Alright, not a strip club,” Deeks agreed, cutting the sausage and reserving half for himself. “Where then?”

“At the library,” Kensi decided. “Hey, don’t laugh! I’m an author of smutty romantic fiction, it makes sense I’d work somewhere with lots of books.”

“Bookstore, maybe,” Deeks allowed. “But not a library. You’re far too hot to be a librarian.”

“That’s an awful stereotype,” Kensi said primly. “I bet there are thousands of hot librarians. You just don’t know any because you don’t read.”

“Trust me, if there were librarians that looked like you, I’d be Reader of the Year,” Deeks joked.

Kensi felt her face flush. Although they were joking around, there was a look in Deeks’ eye that seemed entirely serious. And this wasn’t the first time he’d complimented her on her looks, either. Yes, this was the twenty first century and Kensi knew she should be more worried about how he valued her intelligence and competence and how she handled herself in the field, but there was something very satisfying about being told you were beautiful.

“And I read,” Deeks went on, as he delivered her latest mouthful of food.

“Sports Illustrated doesn’t count,” Kensi said.

Deeks scowled.

“I like non-fiction,” he told her. “Travel books.”

“Very respectable,” she said, winking.

“Well, I am a married father now,” he said, smiling as if he had never been annoyed. “I have to clean up my act now that I convinced you that I’m going to be good for you and Annie.”

“And how did you do that?”Kensi asked, between more mouthfuls of the heavenly potatoes. “It looked like I had pretty much shut you out of my life.”

“Flowers,” Deeks said immediately. “Thousands of dollars worth, bouquets on your doorstep every morning and at your desk in the library. I got a copy of a baby book and kept up on what you’d be going through. I sent you ginger ale and crackers and hung around outside your doctor’s office when you had an appointment.”

“That’s either incredibly romantic, or very stalkerish of you,” Kensi mused. “I can’t decide.”

“Romantic,” Deeks stressed. “Definitely romantic. And when you went into labour suddenly all alone, I came rushing to your side to drive you to the hospital. I proposed in the delivery room.”

“Very romantic,” Kensi laughed.

“The doctor thought so,” Deeks sniffed. “Said I was a keeper.”

“So we got married when Annie was…four weeks old?” Kensi guessed.

“I wanted a cliff side ceremony, but you’re scared of heights. I found a private beach and we exchanged vows by candlelight. It was a lovely service. You cried. I cried. Annie cried. The minister cried.”

“Sounds charming,” Kensi said, actually meaning it. She hadn’t been engaged long enough to Jack to really think about planning their wedding.

“And now we’re a family,” Deeks said softly. “And everything’s perfect.”

He gazed at her steadily with his big blue eyes, and then without warning tightened his grip around her shoulders and kissed her softly. Kensi had no time to react, and let herself relax into his gentle caress. She found herself responding to the insistent pressure of his full lips, closing her eyes and stealing a little nip to his full lower lip that got her an amused noise and a series of little nibbles to her lips that made her forget that she was sitting in a café with a baby in her arms.

“Was that for the cover?” she asked, a little dazed, after he pulled back.

“All finished?”

The cheerful voice of Sandy jolted them both from their romantic reverie.

“Looks like you were right about those home fries!” Sandy continued as Deeks moved away from her. She felt the absence immediately – how had she never noticed how much heat his body generated before?

“You haven’t touched your fruit salad, honey,” she clucked. “You want me to pack it up for you?”

“Yes please,” Kensi said gratefully. “Would you take her?” she asked Deeks, motioning to Annie, who was still enjoying exploring her fingers. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

“Sure,” he said, lifting the baby from Kensi. “I’ll settle up, meet you out front.”

Kensi smiled at him and slipped out of the booth. The ladies room was empty, and she sat in a cubicle and locked the door.

Wow. Had that just happened? Had Deeks just kissed her? Or had Thomas Jackson just kissed his wife Fern?

She’d never had confusion like that while on an op before. She was usually partnered with Callen, and they’d had to kiss a few times to sell their cover, but it had been a strictly professional arrangement. She had never felt anything except tension about their op, and she had been focused on the stream of intel that was being fed to her through her earwig.  
But then, this wasn’t an op like that. There was no surveillance, no back up and really, no target to speak of. Nobody was observing them; they didn’t have to be Fern and Thomas Jackson.

But they had, and Deeks had been feeding her from his plate while they concocted a cover story that sounded like the plot of a romantic comedy. A bad romantic comedy. They’d been cuddled together, and they’d shared his meal, and then he’d kissed her and God knows what would have happened if that damned waitress hadn’t interrupted…

The noise of the heavy bathroom door opened and Kensi heard two sets of high heels click over the tiled floor.

“Did you see him?” one woman said. “So gorgeous. And what a kisser!”

“I saw the wife with the rock on her hand,” said the other, dismissively.

“Oh, forget about that bitch,” the first woman replied.

Kensi’s eyebrows rose.

“A man that fine is fair game,” she continued. “Gorgeous, doesn’t mind holding the baby, gets all romantic in public? Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a good man in this town?”

“I imagine his wife does,” said the second voice dryly. Kensi liked the second voice. She sounded sensible.

“I’m going to give him my number,” the first voice decided. “See how much he likes changing diapers and running to the store for formula when he could be having fun with me.”

Alright, that was it. Whether she was being Kensi Blye or Fern Jackson, it didn’t matter. The first voice was trying to move in on her territory, and that just wasn’t on.  
Kensi flushed the toilet and opened the stall door. The two women, who had been repairing their makeup in the mirror stared at her. One woman, taller, a red head, had a vague look of amusement on her face. Voice number two, Kensi thought. The other, much shorter, a blonde whose eyebrows were significantly darker than her obviously dyed hair, looked horrified.

Smiling her most dangerous smile, Kensi stalked to the empty sink between the two women and began to wash her hands.

“I wouldn’t bother giving my husband your number, if I were you,” she said sweetly to the blonde, whose face was a mixture of belligerence and terror. “I mean, he’d be very nice about it, he’s a sweet guy, but he’d just turn you down.”

“You’re sure about that?” the blonde postured, and Kensi laughed.

“Oh, I’m positive,” she said. “But you can if you like, if the embarrassment isn’t too much for you.”

Kensi pulled some paper towels from the dispenser and wiped her hands dry, making sure that her huge ring was noticeable. As it pulled in every light source available and sparkled, well, like an incredibly expensive diamond, there was no way that either woman could miss it.

“But if you do,” she continued, her voice suddenly becoming steely, and, she couldn’t help but notice, channelling more than a bit of Hetty in her tone, “be aware that I will be watching you very closely. I am not as nice a person as my husband, and I will defend what is mine.”

“Are..are you threatening me?” the blonde asked and Kensi laughed again.

“No,” she said at last. “I save my threats for those that deserve them. Consider that…a friendly warning.”

“Message understood,” the red head said suddenly, grabbing her friend’s arm and hustling her to the door. “Sorry about my friend. She’s an idiot.”

She bundled her friend through quickly, and their footsteps died away. Kensi looked at herself in the mirror, saw the rise of colour in her cheeks, felt how quickly her heart was beating.

“I’m in love,” she said to the mirror, blinking in disbelief. “Shit.”

 

Deeks wasn’t quite sure what had just happened, except that it was possibly the best and most insane thing he had ever done in his life.

In a daze he put Annie back in her stroller, accepted Kensi’s doggy bag of fruit and paid for the meal. He didn’t even notice the annoyed glances he got when he pushed Annie’s stroller back through the busy room. Outside on the street, he began to get a better sense of himself.

He’d just kissed Kensi, after feeding her breakfast from his fork and cuddling up to her in public. Or rather, Thomas Jackson had done that to his wife. But he and Kensi were just pretending to be Thomas and Fern. In fact, the whole thing had happened while they were hashing out their backstory, so technically they weren’t kissing as Thomas and Fern, but as Kensi and Marty.

And Kensi had kissed back. He may have kissed first, swept up in the moment and the licence she was giving him, but she had kissed him back. He ran his tongue over his throbbing lip, sensitive where she had bitten him lightly. That wasn’t undercover kissing. That was real, in the moment, acting on impulse kissing.

He was almost sure of it.

She emerged from the café into the sunlight, looked around and spotted him. He watched her walk to him, her stride long and confident, her head high and proud. God, she was beautiful.

“So, what’s next on the to-do list?”

And, apparently, not as hung up on the kiss as he seemed to be. Maybe he had been Marty kissing Kensi, but she had been Fern kissing Thomas.

Was it just possible that he had cock-blocked himself?

“Uh…baby store and book store. And grocery shopping.”

“We should probably leave the groceries until last,” Kensi said thoughtfully.

“There’s a mall a few blocks down,” Deeks told her, checking his phone. “It’s not that big, but it has two baby stores and a bookstore.”

“Sounds good. Let’s go.”

Kensi assumed control of the stroller and started walking in the direction of the lot they’d left the minivan in. She was in a strange mood. If Deeks was forced to pick an adjective to describe her, he’d choose ‘skittish’. He reminded himself that he knew that getting Kensi to see him as more than just a partner and a friend was going to be hard. The kiss in the café had been spontaneous; he hadn’t planned to kiss her, and she certainly hadn’t expected to be kissed. He needed to back off, give her a little space.

Accordingly, he didn’t complain when she assumed the driver’s seat and asked for the keys, or when she took control of the stroller again when they got into the mall.

They hit the bookstore first, raiding the parenting section and coming away with seven different manuals that all promised to teach them everything there was to know about being a good parent. Kensi also picked up some books from the children’s section containing fairy tales, although Deeks made her put one of them back in exchange for an anthology of modern re-writes.

“I don’t get what the big deal is,” Kensi grumbled as they stood in line to pay. “I grew up with Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, and I did okay.”

“Those stories are totally sexist,” Deeks pointed out. “Annie’s not going to listen to you tell her how she has to be rescued by a man to have a great life.”

“Annie is sixteen weeks old,” Kensi pointed out. “I just want something to read to her that isn’t a redacted version of a mission report.”

“It’s the principle,” Deeks argued stubbornly, and Kensi let him have his way. She honestly didn’t believe that a simple fairy story could make a child grow up to believe that she had to have a boyfriend or she’d fail at being a woman, but Deeks seemed to think it was important.

It wasn’t something that she imagined Sam or Callen having any great feelings about. She had to admit that it was pretty sweet of Deeks to care so much. Being in such close quarters in this situation was revealing a lot about her partner.

They paid and attached the plastic bags containing their purchases to the stroller. They were passing a menswear store when Deeks grimaced.

“I hate to do this, but I need to grab a few things,” he said, gesturing to the store.

“You really need to keep your go-bag better stocked,” Kensi told him, shaking her head. “Come on. What do you need?”

“Some t-shirts, another pair of pants, some underwear,” he said, picking up a basket on the way in.

“Go and get your underwear,” Kensi directed, taking the basket from him. “I’ll grab you some t-shirts.”

“You’re picking out my clothes now?” Deeks asked, smiling at her goofily.

“Fern Jackson is picking out some t-shirts for her husband,” Kensi corrected. “That’s something that wives do, right?”

“Right,” he agreed.

“Go. Shoo,” she gestured. “I don’t want to spend all day shopping.”

Deeks ambled away in search of new underwear. Kensi turned her back and headed towards the t-shirt section. She really had enough problems right now without thinking about Deeks and his underwear.

She cast an eye critically through the racks, dismissing anything too dull or with a crew neck. She selected seven or eight shirts, all either white or shades of blue. He wore blue well. She was looking critically at a pair of cargo pants when he arrived back with a few multipacks of boxer shorts.

“You like blue?” he asked, rifling through her selection.

“It’s good on you,” Kensi said, a little embarrassed. “You can put them back if you want.”

“No,” Deeks said hurriedly. “Blue is good. Blue is excellent. Put those in the basket too.”

He gestured at the pants she was holding.

“I’m not sure they’re the right size,” she said, looking for a label, pleased that he trusted her judgement.

Together they hunted out a pair in the right leg length and waist size. As they were passing the swim suits, Deeks tossed a pair of board shorts on top of the pile of clothing. Kensi saw that they were blue, and smiled.

“How about you?” he asked as they left the store. “You need anything?”

“I’m good,” she said simply.

As a veteran agent, her go-bag had been better prepared for a week’s stay at an unknown location. They pushed Annie, who was beginning to look drowsy, down the corridor towards one of the baby stores. As they passed one of the store fronts, Deeks stopped.

“Come on,” he said, “You have to come in here,” and darted inside.

By the time Kensi got the stroller with all their bags attached through the narrow doorway, Deeks was already punching in the code for the credit card into the payment device. Looking around, Kensi found herself in a nail salon.

“There we go, Fern!” Deeks said brightly. “You’re always saying you never have time to have a manicure. Now you do!”

“Uh…Thomas…” Kensi began, but Deeks sidestepped her argument and gave her a brief but firm peck on the lips. “You just sit here and relax,” he commanded, guiding her to a seat at a waiting station. “I’ll take Annie and pick up what’s on the list at the baby store.”

He swooped down to kiss her again, this time on the cheek, and then he was gone, pushing a now firmly asleep Annie ahead of him.

“Your husband is so thoughtful,” the nail technician said, preparing her station. “And hot,” she added with a wink.

“I’m very lucky,” Kensi said weakly.

“I wish my husband was more like that,” sighed the woman sitting next to her. She was in the middle of having long, orange nails attached to her own. “The last time he volunteered to go shopping was in 1997, and that’s because he wanted beer.”

“Well, we’re newlyweds,” lied Kensi. “I’m sure he’ll stop soon.”

At the mention of a wedding, the women in the store pounced on her.

“Let me see your ring,” the woman with the orange nails demanded.

Meekly, Kensi extended her left hand. There were a few long breaths and one or two whistles from the women who crowded around to have a look.

“Honey, that is one hell of a rock,” Orange Nails said in admiration. “Cartier?”

“Tiffany’s,” Kensi admitted, and there was another squeal from the women.

“Tell me he has a brother,” said another customer.

“No, he’s an only child,” said Kensi, trying to remember what Deeks had told her about their backstories. “He likes…grand gestures.”

“Some women have all the luck,” Orange Nails sighed and released Kensi’s hand. “C’mon honey, how’d he do it? At a restaurant? On the big screen at a ball game?”

“Uh, actually, in the delivery room,” Kensi said, thinking back to breakfast. “I mean, he had asked me about a hundred times before, but when I was having Annie, I said yes.”

“Handsome husband, cute kid, a rock the size of a baseball, and you’re back in your jeans this quick? Sounds like a wonderful life you’ve got there, honey,” Orange Nails said, patting her on the hand. “You stay lucky.”

“I will,” Kensi said, more than a little affected. Her reality was far different to Fern Jackson’s. She dated, but usually ended up sleeping alone in a small apartment which could really use a major spring clean. There were no kids on the horizon, and she had given her old engagement ring back to Jack’s mother and father once she had finally given up all hope of him coming back. She had her work, which was important and time-consuming and vital for the safety of so many people, but…she sighed. One day, she would wake up, and if she was very, very lucky, she would be Hetty. Hetty was amazing – so powerful, so clever, so important; but Hetty, like everybody else, went home alone.

Kensi did not want to spend the rest of her life alone.

“Just pop your rings into the pot here,” the technician told her, interrupting her thoughts, and Kensi tugged off the false wedding and engagement rings she was wearing. She slowly started to relax as the technician massaged her hands and forearms and started to shape her nails, clucking as she did so about the state of them.

While the woman worked, Kensi stared at the vast array of coloured polishes stacked on the rack on the desk. She was tempted by a wine-red colour, and a deep indigo, but then she saw a poster on the wall advertising a French polish, with white tips, and she fell in love with that. It was elegant, she decided. Not too showy, quite unobtrusive. Suitable for work, where red talons wouldn’t be, but pretty, too.

When it was time for her to choose her colour, she asked for the French manicure, selecting a very pale pink to sit over the top. It was so relaxing to sit at the table and have to do nothing but keep her hands still as the technician carefully applied basecoat, colour, white polish on the tips and then a layer of topcoat. She never took so much time on something so trivial. She’d have to make time in the future, she decided. This was nice.  
Deeks arrived back with Annie before she was finished and waved hello as he sat patiently in the waiting area. There were even more bags now hanging from the stroller and tucked underneath. She dreaded to think what he had bought now. Most of the store, from the quantity of bags.

Once the technician had decided that her nails were dry enough, Kensi carefully slid her rings back on to her finger.

“Let me see,” Deeks demanded as the nail technician came over to sneak a peek at Annie.

“Elegant,” he decided, after holding her hand in his and admiring the colour on her nails. “Pretty,” he added, bringing her hand to his lips.

Kensi could feel the blush starting and willed herself to control it. He’s being Thomas Jackson, she chanted over and over in her head. He’s being Thomas Jackson. He’s not flirting with you, he’s being nice to Fern. Who is not you. Probably.

“Oh, what an adorable baby!” the nail technician said, peering in at Annie, who was clutching her bunny. “She looks just like you,” she continued, turning to Kensi, “But she has your eyes,” she finished, looking at Deeks.

“We get that a lot,” Deeks said, flashing a brilliant smile.

“Come back soon,” urged the woman, handing Kensi a card and a small brochure. “Bring your baby.”

“I will,” Kensi said, waving goodbye to Orange Nails and the other women.

“Thank you,” she said sincerely, as they left the store. “That was a really nice thing you just did.”

“No biggie,” Deeks replied, flashing her a grin. “I just remembered what you said about not being able to find the time to go to a place like that normally. And it really didn’t take two of us to hit up a baby store, so…”

He trailed off, and she didn’t feel the need to end his sentence.

“If you got everything we need here, we should go get some groceries and go home,” Kensi said eventually as they strolled past shop fronts.

“Should we feed Annie first?” Deeks asked, looking down dubiously at the baby in the stroller. “Nothing worse than a crying baby in a supermarket.”

“OK, but where?” Kensi asked, looking around. “You can’t just take your shirt off in the middle of the mall.”

“They’ve got a baby changing room over there,” Deeks said, pointing to a bank of restrooms. “It should be private.”

There were no other parents in the room, so there was nobody to protest when Deeks slid the white t-shirt effortlessly up and off his body.

“I’d help,” Kensi offered, trying not to stare but failing. “But my nails aren’t fully dried yet.”

“Oh that’s gonna be your excuse for everything now,” Deeks teased, unpacking the diaper bag to find one of the warm bottles.

Annie didn’t protest at all about the bottle, and kicked her legs eagerly as she started to drink it.

“Do you think she really looks like us?” Kensi asked, sitting next to Deeks as he patiently held Annie.

“I think she’s a sweet baby with dark hair the same colour as yours, and has blue eyes because they haven’t changed yet,” he answered eventually. “Because we act like her parents, people are gonna think we are. But babies change eye and hair colour a lot. She may end up with light hair and brown eyes.”

“You’re good with her,” Kensi said suddenly. “Better than me. Do you ever think…”

“About having one?” Deeks finished. He looked ahead at the tiled wall of the restroom carefully before answering.

“If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said no, definitely not,” he said finally. “The type of work we do, the lives we lead…that doesn’t add up to a good home life for a child.”

“Yeah,” Kensi said, nodding.

“Now though,“ Deeks continued. “I…I don’t know. I’m not certain anymore. Having a kid is such a big responsibility, you know? You gotta be able to look after them right.”

He slipped into silence again.

“You’re not your dad, Deeks,” Kensi said quietly. “You’d never do what he did.”

“You’re sure about that?” Deeks asked, a slight hint of bitterness in his tone.

“Positive,” she said, steel in her voice. She gripped his forearm hard.

“I didn’t know your dad, but he sounded like a real asshole. I’m sorry that you grew up with that example in front of you. But you should know that every decision you have made in your life has carried you away from him,” she said intently. “Going to school, the law degree, joining the LAPD? Those are not the things your father would have done. I think any kid would be lucky to have you for a dad.”

“There are times,” Deeks began slowly, “when I think about what it’d be like to come home, and have a family. Having to pick the baby up from day care, macaroni pictures stuck to the fridge. Finding frogs in the bathtub because Mom vetoed an alligator as a pet.”

Kensi smiled. “It sounds…hectic,” she said softly.

“It sounds amazing,” Deeks said honestly. “I would much rather worry about PTA meetings than drug smugglers and terrorists.”

“You could do it,” Kensi ventured.

“I’d have to find a very understanding wife,” Deeks joked.

“Well, she’d have to put up with your hair every day, so yeah, understanding is probably going to be a big factor,” Kensi teased, bringing the conversation back to a more familiar territory.

“And once more, a dig at the hair,” Deeks sighed. “You really have to do something about this whole jealousy thing you have going on. It’s not healthy.”

“As if I’d be jealous of that mop,” Kensi said scornfully.

Their bickering got them through the end of the bottle and the subsequent diaper change, which Kensi also declined to help with because of her nails.

The supermarket was an interesting experience; they couldn’t seem to go more than four or five metres without somebody stopping to coo over Annie, who was asleep and strapped into the trolley. Deeks played the role of proud father well, engaging the other shoppers in conversation while Kensi threw some basics into the trolley. She was determined to sail down the convenience food aisle without putting anything in the trolley, but Deeks cut through her resolve by picking up a large package of peanut butter cups and throwing them in.

“Don’t try and deny that you’ll need these,” he said. “It’ll save me going out on a midnight run for them later.”

“I wouldn’t make you go out and buy my peanut butter cups,” Kensi argued, taking them out of the trolley and putting them back on the shelf.

“I wouldn’t make you go out on your own to get them,” Deeks argued back. “Not when I’m planning to eat half.”

He retrieved the bag, and added another for good measure.

“Like I’d give you any,” Kensi sniffed.

“Oh, you’d let me,” Deeks said mischievously. “I’m very charming.”

“You’re very annoying,” Kensi told him, trying not to smile.

It was true; she would end up giving him half her peanut butter cups. And if that isn’t love, I don’t know what is, she told herself, shaking her head.

“Hey!” Deeks said happily, adding another package of cupcakes. “We’ve got a barbeque on the sundeck! Let’s grill tonight!”

“Tomorrow,” Kensi told him. “We still have all that Italian food in the fridge to get through tonight. We can see if Callen and Sam can make it.”

“I’ll call them, find out what’s going on,” Deeks said, pulling out his phone. “Get steaks. Big ones! And beer.”

He disappeared around a corner to find a quiet place to call. Kensi headed to the meat section and began to pick out something suitable. They’d need salad, and baked potatoes, and Deeks always insisted on having sour cream and chives, not butter, on his so she’d have to swing back to the beginning of the store to pick some up. Oh, and garlic bread, she realised. She’d seen him go through an entire loaf once, all on his own, and refuse to share.

This is so incredibly domestic, she thought with a smile. And nice, she realised, smoothing down a snoring Annie’s t-shirt.

Maybe she wasn’t ready for the babies and the macaroni and the alligators in the bathtub, but perhaps there was room for somebody who was willing to go on midnight snack runs and liked garlic bread.

When she caught up with him, he looked at the trolley happily.

“Sour cream!” he said, pouncing on the jar. “And garlic bread!”

He beamed at her.

“Well, I like it too,” Kensi said, trying not to let her feelings show.

“You’re gonna need to get more,” Deeks announced. “I got Hetty was in on the phone, and she invited herself to our barbeque. And then she commanded Nell and Eric to show up too.”

“Right,” Kensi said, looking at the contents of the trolley. “We’re gonna need more stuff.”

“I’ll go and get the beer,” Deeks said, turning away, and then turning back to face her.

“This is kinda fun, isn’t it?” he said hesitantly.

“Yeah,” Kensi agreed. “In a weirdly normal way, it kinda is.”

Deeks briefed her on the state of the investigation as Kensi drove them back to the safehouse.

“It looks like we’re in the clear,” he said as he fiddled with the radio. “Surveillance at the house reports no cars entered the street that weren’t registered to one of the families living there. Nobody’s gone near the house.”

“What about the investigation into the strike team?” Kensi asked, negotiating a junction.

“Sam and Callen think that the crime scene has been disturbed,” Deeks reported. “They went back there this morning and Sam used his freaky ninja SEAL powers to spot differences in the way that the furniture was placed.”

“Who would break into a crime scene?” Kensi pondered. “And then try to make it look like they didn’t?”

“They think the strike team, or someone working with them, went back to look for something.”

“What, though?” asked Kensi, puzzled. “And did they find it?”

Deeks shrugged. “This time they went into Annie’s room. Callen said that her crib was disturbed.”

Kensi’s eyes flickered involuntarily to Annie, sleeping safely in her car seat.

“If they didn’t know the Tuckers had a baby, they do now,” she said grimly.

“She’ll be fine,” Deeks said soothingly.

Annie slept through the unloading of the car, but awoke fractious and noisy in time for another feed.

“I’ll do this one,” Kensi volunteered. “I’ll take her upstairs.”

“Why do you need…” Deeks began, and then rolled his eyes. “Oh, yeah. Sorry. You feed her in your room, and I’ll get the rest of the stuff for her put in the nursery. I got her a sleep sack.”

“It’s pink, isn’t it,” Kensi said suspiciously.

“The pinkest I could find,” Deeks said happily. “With flowers.”

Kensi glared darkly at him as she collected bib, burp cloth, bottle and baby.

“And you’re the one who won’t let me read Cinderella to her,” she pointed out snidely, climbing the stairs.

Deeks grinned. Getting a rise out of Kensi was always fun.

 

They played with Annie for a while with the activity mat they had bought for her the day before. It was kind of fun to watch her focus on some new and exciting part of the mat and scrabble her body around to try and get close to it. She couldn’t crawl yet, but she could hold her head up on her own and prop her chest up on her arms.

“According to the book, she’s got a normal development for a baby her age,” Kensi said, reading one of the new books they had bought that morning. “But we should be trying to encourage her to roll over.”

“Well, this one says the opposite,” Deeks said, flipping through another book. “It says that developmental markers vary widely from child to child, even in the same family. We should let Annie move at her own pace.”

“My book has diagrams,” Kensi said, flashing him the page. “And charts of developmental progress. And it refers to nationwide surveys of newborns.”

“Yeah, well, mine was written by a mom of eight and a holistic paediatrician,” countered Deeks.

“Mine was endorsed by the National Association of Paediatric Specialists,” Kensi told him smugly.

“Yeah, well, mine was endorsed by…” Deeks flipped the book over to check the back cover. “Moms Against Unnecessary Medicine.”

They stared at each other.

“Ok, yours sounds better,” Deeks said, setting his book aside. “But it doesn’t mean that it’s right!”

A loud gurgle of delight from Annie brought their attention back to her. She beamed at them from her back.

“She was on her front,” Kensi said, looking at Deeks. “We put her down on her front so she could try and crawl.”

“She turned over all by herself!” Deeks said proudly. “Way to go, Annie!”

He shot a triumphant look at Kensi.

“See, my book was right. Leave her alone, and she’ll do in on her own time.”

“No!” Kensi said indignantly. “We put her on the mat to stimulate her, to try and make her move. My book was right!”

They bickered for the rest of the afternoon, long after Annie had tired of her new trick and had fallen asleep again. They put her in the sleep sack, put Bunny nearby, switched on the baby monitor and went down to the main living room, where they dived into the rest of the baby books.

“Those things are a con,” Kensi said later, around a mouthful of reheated food. “Not one of them says the same thing.”

“I don’t get how parents are supposed to know which of these is right,” Deeks said, gesturing at his pile.

“I guess it’s true,” Kensi said. “Babies really don’t come with instruction manuals.”

“We’ve done okay,” Deeks told her. “Annie’s warm and fed, and has learned to roll over on her back.”

“I’m glad that she isn’t more mobile,” Kensi confessed. “It’s hard enough to keep an eye on her when she’s in her pen, can you imagine what she’ll be like when she learns to crawl? Or walk?”

“We’d have to fence off the pool,” Deeks agreed. “And get some sort of safety buffer for that sliding door to the deck, I don’t trust it not to slam shut on her fingers.”

They paused for a moment, imagining everything that could go wrong with a determined toddler running around the place.

“It’s a good thing we’re not her parents,” Kensi said eventually, shaking her head. “Is there any news on the Tuckers?”

“Hetty didn’t say anything when she called earlier,” Deeks reported. “But no news is good news, I suppose.”

They sat with the baby books for a while longer, marking off sections that looked helpful, until Kensi couldn’t stand it anymore.

“My head is spinning thinking about feeding patterns and sleep cycles,” she said, putting her last book down on top of the pile of discarded ones. “I need to do something else.”

“Movie?” suggested Deeks, hunting for the remote. “There’s bound to be something on.”

He started channel-surfing, while Kensi grabbed snacks from the kitchen. When she came back a very familiar set of opening credits was scrolling up the plasma screen.

“Sci-Fi Channel, Star Wars marathon,” Deeks said proudly. “The best three.”

Kensi paused in the doorway of the room.

“Which three?” she said suspiciously.

Deeks stared at her, confused.

“What do you mean, which three?” he said, incredulity in his tone. “There are only three good Star Wars films.”

Somehow, whatever he said next was going to be incredibly important, Kensi could tell. If she was looking for a sign from the universe, this could be it.

“Which three films, Deeks?” she said again, refusing to budge from the doorway.

“The original trilogy, of course,” he said, completely at sea. “What did you think I meant? Those CGI monstrosities? You can’t honestly think that you can compare Jar-Jar Binks to the Ewoks, do you?”

Kensi let out an audible sigh of relief.

“I was worried,” she said by way of explanation, an unbelievably giddy feeling of relief crashing through her body. “What with the poor taste you show in hairdressing I thought you might be one of those people that loved the new films.”

“You wash your mouth out with soap,” Deeks told her, taking the bowl of popcorn she had brought from the kitchen from her. “Just for that, you don’t get to hold the popcorn.”

“Alright,” she agreed gratefully.

“Just shut up and watch the movie,” he told her. “Liking the new movies more than the originals,” he muttered under his breath, in disgust.

“Alright, God, I’m sorry, okay?” she said as Luke threw a splendid teenage tantrum on screen.

“This one may take some time to forgive,” he said grumpily, belying his words by slinging a companionable arm around her shoulders, like he had at the café that morning.

She cuddled in close, a little surprised by the affectionate gesture but very much in favour of it. He had a welcoming solidity to his body, but he was also warm and, as she had thought, more comfortable to cuddle with that Jack had been.

“Stop hogging the popcorn,” she griped, unwilling to let him know that she was having distinctly girly, mushy thoughts.

“Oh whatever you say, princess,” he said slyly, offering her the bowl.

“Nerf herder,” she shot back, grabbing a handful of popcorn.

“Sssh. Here comes Alec Guinness,” he hissed, and Kensi fell just a little bit more in love.

 

The fact that she hadn’t ripped his kidneys out must mean that she was feeling other than professional thoughts for him, Deeks thought, as the familiar story of intergalactic civil war played out in front of them.

Before, at the café, that could have been all for show, although he would bet everything he owned that his instincts were right and there had been more Kensi than Fern in that kiss. But here, now, in the privacy of the safe house, there was no way he could have gotten away with touching her like this unless she liked it.

He’d never been one for living on the quiet side of life, so he allowed himself to start playing with the strands of her long, dark hair that brushed against his hand. It was soft and smooth, and he wound it through his fingers repeatedly.

Her breath hitched slightly, and her body tensed, before she released a long, slow breath and shifted position a little to drape herself more fully against him. She let her head rest against his shoulder, and in a move of unparalleled bravery, he took her free hand and held it loosely in his. He thought about trying to make a comment about her nails, or how greasy her fingers were from the buttery popcorn they’d shared.

But it wasn’t necessary. She let her fingers twine with his, and said nothing. He realised that there was no reason for words either, leaned back into the couch, and enjoyed the movie.

 

Alright, they were snuggling. There was no other word for it. She was on the couch, with her partner, snuggling. They were holding hands, and he was playing with her hair.  
If someone had asked her six months ago if this would ever happen, she would have laughed in their faces, then, when she had her breath back, punched them. If they’d asked a month ago, she’d have…well, she’d have worried that they had some way of reading her mind, then punched them.

But now?

She’d punch them if they tried to make her stop.

They’d made it through the first movie just fine, but partway through Empire the baby monitor crackled into life as Annie started to cry.

“I got it,” he murmured as Lando Calrissian turned up on screen for the first time. “Stay here. Just…stay here. Don’t move, okay?”

“Okay,” she assured him.

He gave her hand one last firm squeeze and then heaved himself off the couch to go and tend to Annie, picking up a made-up bottle from the kitchen on his way.

After he had disappeared up the stairs Kensi stretched and lay out fully on the couch. She heard his movements in the room over the baby monitor and smiled as she heard him start his usual nonsense spiel for the sake of Annie. She turned down the movie and listened as he told Annie a story about knights and princesses and wizards, full of dragons and treasure and impossible rescues.

Kensi heard the familiar sound of Annie gobbling down her bottle, and of Deeks’ reaction when he laid her on the changing station and cleaned her up.

“C’mon now Annie, go to sleep,” he said softly. “I’ve got a hot date waiting downstairs for some quality snuggle time, and I need to get back there.”

Kensi snorted into the couch cushions. Clearly he had forgotten about the baby monitor.  
Annie, however, was not in the mood to play along. It seemed that whenever Deeks moved out of her line of sight, she’d grizzle and start to cry, and he’d have to pick her up and walk her about to get her to stop.

“What will it take, Annie, hmm?” he asked. “You’ve had my most awesome story. What about a song, huh? Do you like a song?”

Kensi blinked. She’d never heard him sing before, and she was curious to hear just how bad he was.

“Alright then,” Deeks said. “I’m not sure that anything I know is suitable for a lullaby. I’m gonna have to be a little spontaneous. You down with that, kid?”

Annie gurgled in anticipation of her lullaby. Kensi grinned and turned up the volume of the monitor in her hand.

“I see you when you smile, and I want a sing a song,” he began, in a surprisingly pleasant voice. “But then I write the words, and they always come out wrong. They come out wrong,” he repeated.

“I see it in your fingers, I see it in your toes, but then words get frozen in my mouth, like Eskimos,” he went on. With nowhere to go after that particular lyric, he added, “I like your nose.”

Kensi smiled. He let loose with some impressive “ooh oohs” and then added “Annie,” then repeated the refrain, finishing with “Annie’s song!”

The baby laughed, and let out what was an unmistakable yawn. This obviously encouraged Deeks, who didn’t have the creative juices flowing enough to improvise another verse, so he repeated the first one a few more times, dropping the volume a little each time.

Back down on the couch Kensi smiled, then yawned herself. Deeks was full of surprises. He may need a little help with the lyrics, but his voice was kinda nice. She closed her eyes as he continued to serenade the baby, and waited for him to come back downstairs.

Annie finally closed her eyes after ten minutes of the stupid song he had made up. Deeks crept carefully for the door and made it out into the corridor without her complaining, so she must have gone back to sleep.

He jogged downstairs, eager to get back to whatever he and Kensi may have been on their way to doing, but was stopped in his tracks at the sight of his partner asleep on the couch, the baby monitor held loosely in her hand.

He shook his head in amusement. He had forgotten that everything he said in the nursery would be transmitted back downstairs. Clearly his lullaby had worked, because Kensi, as well as Annie, had fallen asleep.

“It should have worked,” he said under his breath as he tugged a throw from a nearby armchair and draped it over her. “It was kinda about you anyway.”

He debated waking her up, but she looked so peaceful sleeping there that he didn’t have the heart to do so. He could have carried her up the stairs, but she may have woken up, and it might look a little creepy. There was also the fact that he’d seen Sam wake Callen up once on a night stake-out, and Callen’s automatic reaction was to strike out. If Sam’s reaction time had been half a second slower, he would have had a broken nose.

Deeks did not have Sam Hanna’s reaction times, and he liked his nose as it was.

He gently removed the baby monitor from Kensi’s hands and, giving in to temptation, kissed her lightly on the temple. He’d let her sleep on the sofa tonight, and he’d get up for the night feed and change. It was only fair, she’d done it the day before.

But there had been definite snuggling going on, he prided himself as he switched off the television and made his way up to bed. She couldn’t deny that.

 

Somehow, the warm light of day made it difficult for Kensi to bring up what happened the previous night. How do you go about talking about that, she wondered.  
Morning Deeks, wanna snuggle again on the sofa like we did last night?

Hey Deeks, I think we could have ended up kissing again if I hadn’t fallen asleep. Wanna make out?

Deeks, just tell me if you’re messing with me because I’m scared of falling in love with you?

They didn’t teach you that during basic NCIS training.

Kensi dealt with the morning change and feed, taking Annie back into her bedroom in case Deeks stumbled into the nursery and got an eyeful. With the assistance of a few pillows, Kensi was able to prop Annie into a suitable position to feed while she booted up her laptop to check her messages.

“What the hell?” Kensi swore, as her screen froze then a stream of numbers flashed across it. She pounded the keys in an attempt to bring her secure connection to the NCIS servers back, but her efforts were useless. The movements meant she had to reposition the baby slightly but this knocked the ever-present Bunny off the bed and onto the floor.

Annie, always aware of where Bunny was, started to protest and refuse the feed. By the time Kensi picked the bunny up from the floor and settled Annie, the laptop’s screen had returned to normal and her secure email account was waiting for her attention. She made a mental note to tell Eric the next time she was back in ops and get him to have a look at it. Perhaps it was due to the half a can of Diet Coke that Deeks had spilt on her desk a week ago.

The baby fed and changed, Kensi went downstairs to fix breakfast. Her body was complaining about a lack of exercise and when Deeks came down to eat he complained about having missed his morning runs. One of the rooms upstairs had been turned into a small gym, so by common consent they headed there after breakfast.

Annie stayed contentedly in her playpen, exploring the activity mat in her strange commando wriggle and half-roll. Deeks took the treadmill and began his usual three mile run, while Kensi negotiated the cross-trainer. They stopped after an hour’s activity, having utilised all the different machines in the room.

“I’m bored,” Deeks said, flopping down onto the floor near the playpen.

“Yeah, agreed Kensi, stretching in a way that made Deeks’ eyes pop. “I’d give anything for some time on the shooting range right now,” she said wistfully.

“I’m just not used to…shopping,” Deeks said, waving his hand in the air as he searched for a word. “Is it me, or is that all we’ve done since this job started?”

“Shop and change diapers,” agreed Kensi.

“I don’t know how parents who stay home do it,” Deeks said, shaking his head. “I’d go nuts.”

“They’re something special,” agreed Kensi. “Give me a car chase any day of the week.”

“Or a shoot-out,” Deeks said, sounding plaintive. “Nothing like some good, old-fashioned adrenaline to get the heart racing.”

They sighed, and looked at Annie, who was trying to stick her toes in her mouth with a remarkable amount of success.

“Wanna go and get an ice cream somewhere?” Deeks said.

“Sure,” Kensi agreed. “That sounds like…fun.”

 

They went and found a park where other young families were hanging out, ate some ice cream, swapped fictitious horror stories about Annie’s birth and propped Annie up as she met some other babies. Deeks got to play in a sandbox with Annie, and Kensi got complimented on her nails.

They both longed for a chance to shoot somebody.

Kensi stared about the park, her trained agent’s senses on alert. Despite the amount of happy children, old people walking their dogs and friendly park workers keeping the place clean, something was bothering her.

“Your spidey-senses tingling?” Deeks asked her quietly as he leant over Annie to discourage her from eating the sand in the box.

“Something’s off,” Kensi said quietly. “I can’t place what, but…”

She cast her gaze around the park again, and she found it.

“Deeks, two o’clock, guy on the park bench,” she said quietly.

Deeks slid a look in that direction as he reached for the diaper bag. The man Kensi had noted looked to be in his early forties – too old for a parent, too young for a grandparent. He didn’t have a dog with him, and he wasn’t reading a newspaper.

“Could be nothing,” Deeks said as he leaned over Annie again. “Just some dude out in the park.”

“He’s hinky,” Kensi said, getting up. “Let’s go.”

“Okay,” Deeks said, fiddling with his phone. “Go and stand with Annie under that tree. I’ll snap a picture and send it to Eric, see if he can find something.”

Annie duly went and posed with the baby, smiling at the camera as Deeks took a few shots of the mystery guy on the bench behind her.

“Sent,” he said tersely. “Eric’s running them through facial recognition now.”

They packed up the rest of Annie’s gear and moved off. The man on the bench didn’t register their going, but then, as Kensi pointed out, a professional wouldn’t.

“We don’t know that they’re targeting Annie,” Deeks felt it necessary to point out. “And even if they were looking for one baby girl in Los Angeles, what are the chances of them finding her?”

“I’ll be happier when we’re back at the safe house,” Kensi said tersely, buckling Annie into the minivan.

Deeks drove, allowing Kensi to keep an eye on any potential tails. Her forehead had a permanent crease as she kept a close watch on the rear view mirror.

“Red four by four”, she said intently.

Deeks flicked his eyes to the mirror, just as the car signalled and turned off into a side street.

“False alarm,” he said reasonably.

“The grey Chevy is still there,” she pointed out.

“All right,” he sighed. “Evasive driving 101 is about to pay off.”

Deeks played about with traffic, pulling ahead and then dropping back until the grey Chevy overtook them in the outside lane. Kensi stared intently at the driver, a man with close-cropped dark hair in his late thirties, but the only time his attention flickered from the road was when he leaned over to change the radio station.

“What do you think?” Deeks asked.

Kensi scowled.

“False alarm,” she agreed. “Just take the long way home, will you? Just in case?”

“Scenic route, coming up,” he said affably.

Part of Deeks’ ‘scenic route’ took them past some of the most famous landmarks in the city.

“Sunset Boulevard? Really?” Kensi asked.

“I’ve lived in LA all my life, and there are so many places I haven’t visited,” Deeks said, peering about. “Look up there. The Beverly Hills Hotel.”

“Pink,” sighed Kensi. She stared at the famous hotel for a little longer, then added wistfully, “I wonder what it’s like in there.”

“Very, very clean,” noted Deeks as they passed the entrance gates. “And if you throw a rock, you hit a movie star. Of course, you then have to deal with the movie star’s security guards, but…”

“Oh like you know,” scoffed Kensi.

“I know more than you think,” Deeks said playfully. “I’ve done a lot of undercover work in this city before I ended up at NCIS.”

“You were undercover at the Beverly Hills Hotel?” Kensi said doubtfully.

“I can neither confirm nor deny that, Agent Blye,” Deeks said seriously. “Top secret.”

“Of course,” Kensi said, not believing him for a moment.

“You’d hate it though,” he confided to her. “Too pink.”

“For a five star hotel, I’d put up with a little pink,” she admitted, and the conversation changed to the best places they had ever stayed in. Deeks shook his head when she admitted that she rated Camp Pendleton pretty high.

It took them another forty minutes to get home, during which Eric called. The man in the park checked out – local guy, no criminal record, worked as a loss adjuster in a nearby insurance company.

“Probably on his lunch break,” Deeks reasoned. “Getting a little fresh air.”

“I still think he looked hinky,” Kensi grumbled.

“Let’s get the food ready,” Deeks said, heading into the kitchen. “If we do that now, we can swim before the rest get here.”

“Fine,” Kensi said. “I’ll get started on that, you go change Annie and put her in a swim diaper. I put her inflatable in the utility room.”

Assembling the food was easy. Kensi threw some bagged salad in serving bowls and hunted out the salad dressing that they’d bought. She sliced some tomatoes and onions and mixed them in, knowing that Sam would pile his plate with it while Callen would avoid it if at all possible. The baked potatoes went in the oven, lightly oiled and dusted with salt, just like her father had taught her. The steaks she left alone, ready for the grill later.  
They’d even remembered to grab a couple of different frozen desserts, so she hunted them out and left them on the counter to start to defrost.

The whole situation smacked absurdly of a dinner party, rather than a briefing, and Kensi found herself smiling at the thought of it. But down time was pretty rare, and they would socialise as a whole team whenever they could. Hetty was killing two birds with one stone, in her usual efficient manner.

“You okay?” Kensi called as she made her way upstairs. “Food is done.”

“We’re good,” Deeks called from the nursery. “These swimming diapers are awesome. They’ve got the Finding Nemo fish on them!”

“Maybe we should have got some in your size!” Kensi called from her room.

She pulled on the bikini that had been lurking in her go-bag since that last op that had required beach surveillance. Part of her was grateful that it wasn’t the frumpy black one-piece that NCIS protocols advised female agents to have with them. It was hard to be seductive in something a grandmother would wear.

“I would totally rock those!” Deeks called back, through the closed door, and Kensi laughed, the ridiculous visual stuck in her mind. “I’ve left Annie in her crib. I’m going to put her playpen outside.”

“I’ll bring her down,” Kensi called back as she twisted and pinned her hair up.

She heard Deeks drag the soft travel play pen down the corridor as she hunted out a towel and something to use as a cover-up. Unfortunately there was nothing in her go-bag that was suitable, and resigned herself to coming back in to change once their fun in the water was over.

By the time she was ready and had collected Annie, Deeks had put the playpen in a shady spot in the garden near the pool. Kensi had found Annie’s sunhat from the diaper bag, and the child made a striking sight in a pink hat and pink flowered bathing costume with a garish Finding Nemo swim diaper.

She’d also found the bottle of Factor 70 sun cream Deeks had bought earlier, and had just finished rubbing it into a disapproving Annie’s body.

“Why is she fussing?” Deeks asked, adjusting the activity mat on the floor of the playpen.

“She didn’t like the sunblock,” Kensi explained, placing Annie in the safety of the pen.

“Sorry, princess,” commiserated Deeks.”You’ve gotta have it.”

“Have you put it on?” Kensi asked, her stomach flip-flopping slightly.

There had been no discussion about the previous night’s activities on the couch, or the confusing kiss in the café the day before. Kensi wasn’t really sure what was happening with Deeks, but it was becoming more and more obvious that he was interested in having more than a professional partnership. He had kissed her; he had initiated their two hours of cuddling on the couch.

It was time for her to step up. If she wanted this – and she had to admit, she did, God help her – then she was going to have to show her interest too.

“Ah, no,” he began and Kensi interrupted him before he could continue.

“Turn around,” she said, motioning with her finger. “I’ll do your back.”

“Alright,” he said slowly. “Thanks.”

“This’ll be cold,” she warned. “Don’t you be a baby about it. Annie has an excuse.”

“I can take it I…ah!” he exclaimed, as she drizzled the cool liquid on his shoulders.

“Baby,” she teased, beginning to work the cream into the solid muscles of his back.

 

Thank God she had told him to turn around. If Kensi could see what was happening in the front of his board shorts, there’d be no way that she’d still be touching him. Guiltily, Deeks snuck a look at Annie, who was also faced away from him. This was bad. He shuffled a little, and kept his hands folded over his groin. He braced his feet against the ground to counter the push she was making against his back.

But, oh, this was good. She was running her thumbs along his spine and using broad sweeps of her hands to work the cream into his skin. Her touch was firm but not rough, more of an exploratory caress than a functional rub. She was certainly thorough; every inch of skin on his back was coated with the cream by the time she had finished with him. He shivered a little as her hands dipped to the small of his back and her fingers grazed the skin beneath the waistband of his shorts. She would be awesome at back rubs, he knew, and he made a mental note to try and con one from her at the next available opportunity.

“There,” she said eventually, her voice a little husky. “You’re all done.”

He could feel her move away, and he half-turned and grabbed her wrist.

“You next,” he told her, and she surrendered the bottle of sun cream to him without complaint. She turned her back and he was faced with an expanse of tanned skin and license to touch.

He started at the top, letting the cool lotion drop at the nape of her neck. He could see the shiver travel the length of her body, but stubborn as ever, she didn’t make a noise. He kept his left hand braced on her shoulder and used his right to work the cream along the toned length of her back. The straps of her bikini, the same pink bikini that had tormented him all those months ago, got in the way of his exploration of her skin. Reasoning that she had done the same to him, he slipped his hand underneath it, spreading the lotion along her rib cage. He wasn’t brave enough to move his hand upwards, although a few inches in that direction would allow him to touch one of the heavenly breasts he had glimpsed two nights ago.

He did allow himself the luxury of moving his left hand down her back, spreading the cream  
down to the flare of her hips. She didn’t exactly have a hand-span waist, but she was slender enough for his hands to fit comfortably there. It took just about all his powers of self control not to pull her back against him and let his hands roam around the front of her body also, but he gritted his teeth and restrained himself. Now was not the time, nor the place.

But if he was any judge, it would be soon.

“There,” he said eventually, when he couldn’t prolong his explorations any longer. “You’re done.”

“I’ll blow up the inflatable,” she said evenly, and went to unpack it from the box sitting on a sun longer.

Deeks smeared lotion over the rest of his body, acutely aware of how easy he burnt when out in the water. He then picked Annie up from the play pen, and started to wade carefully into the shallow end of the pool.

He and Kensi had bathed her three or four times now, and she seemed to enjoy the experience. But the swimming pool was a lot colder, and Deeks made sure to acclimatise her to the temperature before he started to dip her feet in the water.

The baby soon found a delightful game in splashing the water with her feet, and Deeks enjoyed dipping her a little further into the water with each bounce. Annie clearly loved the whole experience and shrieked and splashed loudly.

“Here,” said Kensi, appearing at his side with the special inflatable chair. “Put her in this.”

Annie slotted neatly into the chair, her head and neck supported by the clever design. They soon devised a game where they pushed the inflatable between them both, with Annie kicking and splashing the water with her tiny fists.

It wasn’t long before Deeks couldn’t resist splashing Kensi, who retaliated immediately and with double force.

They were soon immersed in a game of splash, with one eye on Annie, who was doing her best to join in as best she could. They were both laughing and trying to dodge the efforts of the other, and so didn’t notice the door to the garden slide open until they were interrupted by a familiar voice.

“It’s a hard life for these young NCIS agents, ain’t that right, G?”

“The hardest,” agreed Callen, who appeared poolside with Sam. “Having to face danger and death on a daily basis…”

“Never knowing who’s a friend and who’s an enemy…”

“Going undercover in squalor to bust dangerous terrorists…”

“Night feeds,” Kensi shot back.

“Poopy diapers,” added Deeks.

“Having to share a house with Deeks,” Kensi added, sending him a conciliatory splash to show she didn’t mean it.

“Well, that is pretty bad,” Sam agreed, a broad grin splitting his handsome face.

“I’d rather go undercover in a crack house,” Callen nodded.

“I’m not feeling the love here guys,” Deeks said blithely. “You’ll still like me, won’t you, princess?” he said to the baby, who was still eagerly splashing.

“You’ve got until she can talk,” Sam said, grinning at the baby. “She’s looking good.”

“We finally figured out how to get her to take a bottle,” Kensi said, swimming to the steps and coming out of the pool. “And how to get her to go to sleep.”

“The art of childcare is a tricky one, Miss Blye,” came a familiar voice from behind Sam and Callen. “You and Mr Deeks should be congratulated on your care of Miss Tucker.”

Hetty appeared, followed by Nell and Eric, who were looking around the garden and the pool with an envious expression.

“Any news on the parents?” Deeks asked.

“Responding well to treatment, but still kept in the artificially induced comas the doctors recommend,” Hetty said, perching on the edge of one of the sun loungers. “It will be some time yet before they wake up.”

“Do we have anything new on the shooters?” Kensi asked, wringing out her hair. Any attempt to keep it dry had failed in her splash-fight. She looked about for a cover-up and sighed when she realised that she didn’t have one.

“Use my t-shirt,” Deeks called from the pool.

She nodded her thanks and tuned into Eric’s mini-briefing as she grabbed Deeks’ shirt and pulled it over her head. Eric looked a little ill at ease without a bank of computers around him.

“We finally got a chance to interview the Tuckers’ CO at the base,” Sam said, pulling off his shirt and jeans to reveal swimming trunks in a surprisingly garish yellow colour. “Although he was real cagey about what they did.”

“He said that Commander Tucker had a secure phone line in his apartment, used to connect his laptop to it to send encrypted messages back and forth to the base while he’s on leave,” Callen added, also stripping down to reveal a more tasteful pair of black swim shorts. “But Eric said that it actually isn’t completely secure.”

“We got let out to play,” Nell said happily. “We tested the line, and found that there was a tap somewhere between the apartment and the naval base.”

“You mean, any top secret stuff the Tuckers were working on has been hacked?” Kensi asked, sitting on another sun lounger.

“Hacked, but maybe not decrypted,” Eric shrugged. “The Tuckers were using an incredible algorithm to protect their messages, one that Captain Tucker devised. It’s impenetrable. If somebody has been stealing their messages to base, they won’t be able to decrypt them without her decryption key.”

“Maybe that’s what they were there to find,” Deeks said thoughtfully, guiding Annie in her inflatable out of the way as Sam and Callen dived into the deeper end of the pool.

“They might have been trying to snatch the Tuckers, panicked when the Tuckers returned fire and ended up shooting them,” Nell said thoughtfully. “Then they went back and looked for the decryption key.”

“You sent in pictures of a person of interest this afternoon,” Hetty reminded them.

“And I thought we were being tailed, by two separate cars,” admitted Kensi. “But we weren’t.”

“It’s natural to be cautious,” Hetty said thoughtfully. “But the teams out on surveillance haven’t reported any suspicious people in the area.”

“So, did they get the key or not?” Deeks asked.

“The naval base reports no unauthorised access of its files,” Eric said. “That would suggest that the key hasn’t been found.”

“So they’re still looking,” Callen said grimly.

“But for tonight, we are all safe,” Hetty said conclusively. “We have good weather, good friends, and I believe there was mention of good food?”

Kensi stood up. “It’s all ready to go,” she said. “I’ll start up the grill.”

“No!” objected Deeks. “Grilling is man’s work. I’ll do it. You get the girly salads.”

“Hey,” Sam objected, aggrieved. “There’s nothing feminine about pure protein, Deeks. You may want to try some, bulk yourself up a bit.”

There was much splashing as the two men sorted out their differences by the traditional masculine way of shoving each other’s head under the water.

“Pass me Annie, Callen,” Kensi called. “Before she gets drowned by the people protecting her.”

Callen obliged, lifting the child from her seat and passing her up to Kensi. Nell spread a towel out on the sun lounger and Kensi quickly removed the tiny bathing suit, pulled off the disposable swim diaper, dried the baby and fitted her into a new, clean diaper.

“You’re pretty good at that,” Nell said, impressed.

“I’ve changed a lot of diapers in the last two days,” Kensi said, rifling through the diaper bag for a change of outfit for Annie. “It’s getting easier.”

“My nephew is old enough to pass my sister the powder and the rash cream,” Nell said, playing with Annie’s fingers and making the baby laugh. “She says that makes the whole process easier. My niece is still too little, though.”

“You can do the next one if you like,” Kensi offered. She looked across at the pool, where Deeks was struggling under Sam’s powerful grip. “You may have to, if Sam drowns Deeks.”

She raised her voice.

“Hey Sam, let my partner go!” she called. “Otherwise we don’t get to eat tonight.”

“It’s only because I was promised steak,” Sam said, letting a spluttering Deeks up from the pool.

“Just for that, I’m gonna burn yours,” Deeks vowed as Sam floated away on his back, laughing.

“Is Annie hungry?” Deeks asked. He pulled himself from in the pool in one fluid, athletic move. Water dripped from his body as he came over towards the women, the weight of it dragging his board shorts down a little to reveal the defined muscle over his hipbones. Kensi saw Nell’s eyes widen a little before she looked away hurriedly; a tiny spark of jealousy flared up in Kensi which she quickly dampened down.

It hadn’t been Nell he kissed in that café, or watched Star Wars with on the couch, or ran his hands over as he rubbed sun cream into her skin. When his hand had slipped under her bikini she hadn’t been sure whether she wanted to shy away or arch into his touch; if he had remained as close to her as he had been for much longer, she would have ended up letting her body press against his, she knew.

Nell could look all she wanted, Kensi decided. But if she tried to touch, she’d break her fingers.

“You can try her if you like,” Kensi told Deeks. “But dry off first, I’ve just got her changed into one of those ridiculous dresses you chose for her.”

Deeks swiped a towel from the pile on a sun lounger and briskly dried himself. Nell  
disappeared into the house to change into her swimsuit, while Eric, like the other men, had worn his bathing suit under his shorts. Hetty declined to swim, but sat regally on a sun lounger and watched her team enjoy a few rare moments of fun in the sun.

Kensi found a bottle in the diaper bag and handed it over to Deeks, but Annie refused to take it.

“Not hungry yet,” Deeks shrugged. “No problem, we’ll try her later. You take her back, I’m going to make a start on the grill.”

The baby seemed fascinated by the noise and splashing in the water and contentedly chewed on her fingers as she watched the horsing around going on. Pretty soon, however, her eyelids began to droop and she fell asleep on Kensi’s lap. Excusing herself to Hetty, Kensi went back into the house to find the baby sling they had bought. It was ideal; the baby could sleep contentedly next to the wearer, who could keep an eye on them while still getting on with whatever they had to do.

Hetty smiled at her as she re-emerged with Annie in the sling, carrying the bowls of salad.

“Let me help you,” Hetty said, whisking the bowls away.

Deeks had brought plates and cutlery to the outside dining table earlier, and the two women swiftly laid places for all of the team.

“You seem to have acclimatised yourself to the presence of Miss Tucker,” Hetty observed.

“I’m less nervous than I used to be,” Kensi admitted. “I’m still not convinced that I’m cut out for being a mom, though.”

“Some women are, some aren’t,” Hetty said reflectively. “It isn’t a crime to never have children, Miss Blye.”

“Hetty, did you ever…” Kensi began , then flushed and stopped herself. “No, I’m sorry, that’s personal.”

“Did I ever want children?” Hetty asked, setting the cutlery just so on the table in front of her.

She paused for a moment, thinking carefully.

“Motherhood was not an option for me,” she said at last. “For many reasons,” she added. “I learned, over the years, to accept that there was another role intended for me, and I’ve done the best I can with that.”

She picked up a napkin to fold and looked out over at the pool where Callen was engaged in a not-so-friendly race against Sam.

“You don’t have to have children of your own to be maternal,” she concluded to Kensi. “But you also don’t have to let this job dictate the pattern of your life, either.”

Kensi remained silent as Hetty spoke to her, the words clearly coming from the heart.

“You do an amazing job, Miss Blye. But it’s essentially a lonely one. There will come a day when returning home from an op will mean less and less to you if you’re coming home to an empty house. I worry about that, for you and the others.”

Again, unbidden, her gaze drifted to Callen.

“You are not the job, Kensi,” she concluded. “And if you find a chance to achieve happiness outside the job that does not depend on the job, then you should grab it, hold on to it and protect it from anyone who tries to take it from you.”

Hetty sighed.

“Words, my dear, that were in short supply when I was a young agent.”

“I’ll…think about them,” Kensi told Hetty.

“Kensi!” came an aggrieved cry from the kitchen. “You forgot the garlic bread!”

Deeks’ head poked over the railing separating the upper tier of the garden. He looked distraught.

“In the fridge, defrosting,” she called. “Don’t put it in until we’re just about to eat.”

“I don’t see it!” he called back.

“It’s there!” she said, annoyed. “Red packaging, you can’t miss it!”

“You ate it all already,” Deeks’ voice accused. “You ate it without me. I thought we were a team, Kensi!”

“Excuse me Hetty,” Kensi sighed. “I have to go and hit him with the garlic bread that is quite clearly visible.”

“Go,” Hetty said, smiling.

Kensi stomped back up to the kitchen, passing Nell on the way down. Nell paused by Hetty on her way to the pool.

“Do you think Kensi knows that she and Deeks are as good as married?” Nell asked.

“What makes you say that, Miss Jones?” Hetty asked, in the innocent way she had that meant she knew ten times as much as you did on the subject.

“She’s wearing his t-shirt, they’re bickering over the best way to store food in the fridge and all the time they can’t keep their eyes off each other,” Nell said. “Their body language too…”

“Ah, you noticed that,” Hetty said, smiling.

“You couldn’t miss it!” Nell said, waving her hands around for emphasis. “Their pelvises are continually tilted towards each other, Deeks stands between Kensi and the other guys, blocking their line of sight, and pupil dilation when the other is holding the baby? Off the charts! If I, er, had a chart, that is.”

“Have you tested your hypothesis?” Hetty asked, knowing the answer before she asked.

“I faked a sexual attraction to Deeks when he got out of the pool,” Nell admitted. “Kensi got very tense.”

“I’d avoid doing that in future, Miss Jones,” Hetty advised. “Especially if she is armed.”

“You planned this, didn’t you?” Nell asked shrewdly, her eyes narrowing.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Hetty said archly.

And that was the end of that conversation.

The garlic bread was retrieved from its cunning hiding place of being placed on the second shelf of the fridge, the potatoes had been slow-baked to perfection, the salad was dressed and Deeks proved surprisingly adept at grilling. Beers were drunk, food was eaten and the early evening slipped into night. Annie woke just after the meal ended, and Deeks surprised Hetty by immediately pulling off his shirt and accepting the baby and bottle from Kensi.

“We think that Captain Tucker was still breastfeeding her,” Kensi explained. “She needs a lot of skin to skin contact to take milk from a bottle.”

“So many jokes,” Callen said longingly.

“So little time,” Sam concluded.

“Hey,” said Kensi, a little more angry than she intended to be. “You two ditched the baby as soon as you could. I don’t see either of you willing to do that.”

“Kensi’s got a point,” Nell said slyly. “Don’t be mean to Deeks because he’s man enough to do what it takes and you’re not.”

Kensi couldn’t help it; her phone was right there next to her. Pictures of the ensuing struggle between Sam and Callen to be the first to strip off their shirts and nurse Annie just had to be taken.

“Thanks, partner,” Deeks said quietly in her ear as he knelt beside her chair.

“We say some pretty awful things to you,” Kensi replied, turning her head slightly, the words coming out in a sudden rush. “I’ve said some pretty awful things to you in the past. I didn’t mean them. I…”

“Sssh,” he said, shaking his head.

But Kensi was insistent.

“No, I don’t want you to think…” she started, but stopped when he discreetly let his hand find hers under the table cloth, and squeezed it.

“I never have,” he said intently.

Their eyes were locked together for what felt like an eternity. Kensi read honest sincerity and affection in his open face, and what could only be described as warmth, and love. And it was all directed at her. He feels the same way, she realised. It’s not just me .

She smiled at him, trying to show that she understood that she felt that way too. She gripped his hand hard and willed him to understand.

He must have, she thought wildly, because his face changed, became softer and his smile even more pronounced.

“Really?” he said softly, under the camouflage of Sam and Callen’s bickering and Eric and Nell’s amused laughter.

“Really,” she said firmly.

He looked around at their company, frustration writ large on his face.

“They’ll be gone soon,” Kensi said in an undertone.

“Can’t be soon enough,” he muttered back, then stood up, choosing to stand behind her chair to watch Sam and Callen’s antics. That way, she realised, nobody could see that he was tracing one finger lazily along the nape of her neck. She shuddered slightly, and he laughed, and she began to plot the one hundred and one things she would do with his body that would make him shudder, scream and beg her not to stop.

Unbeknownst to them, Nell sent a significant look to Hetty, who merely smiled her inscrutable smile and went back to refereeing the impromptu “who’s manlier than who” competition. Nell manoeuvred her own phone towards Deeks and Kensi and snapped a few shots of her own. You never knew when things like that could come in handy.

Despite the battle royale around her, Annie took most of the bottle she was offered. Sam refused to wind her, on the grounds that his hands were too large and the thought of patting her, however gently, freaked him out. Callen smugly took over that job, but nobody thought to pass him a burp cloth and they all enjoyed Annie’s subsequent present to him that dripped down his back.

“That’s more than she’s spit up before,” Deeks said as Callen gingerly passed the baby back to him. He pressed the back of his hand against the baby’s forehead. “Does she feel hot to you?”

Kensi leaned forward and repeated the motion. “She is a little warm,” she said. “But she’s bundled up in a blanket and has been pressed up against people all night. It’s probably nothing.”

“Hmm,” Deeks said, loosening the blanket around Annie. She grizzled and grumbled for twenty minutes before she fell asleep again, with Deeks watching her like a hawk the entire time.

The group was having such a good time that they didn’t leave until eleven o’clock. It was nice, Kensi thought, and she had enjoyed herself, but she couldn’t wait for them to all leave so she and Deeks could…well, finish what they had started on the couch the previous night, to start with. Idly, she wondered if he had packed any condoms in his go-bag. She didn’t have any in hers. She was protected, because of her pill, but she’d never had sex without a condom before, ever. Not even with Jack on the night he proposed. Another one of her control-freak issues, she guessed, but one that she wasn’t too worried about. At least this way she knew she was clean.

But pretty soon condoms were the last thing on her mind.

 

Annie woke up as soon as the team left, and she didn’t just cry, she howled. Continually and without pausing for breath for two hours straight. Nothing they tried worked; she didn’t want to be rocked, walked, fed or changed. She cried when they picked her up, and she screamed even louder when they tried putting her down.

“She’s still warm,” Deeks said, worried, as the red-faced child wailed and wailed in his arms.

“Did you check the book?” Kensi replied, raising her voice over the top of the screaming.

“It’s in the living room, with the others,” he replied. “I’m gonna get a cold compress, see if it helps.”

He took Annie into the bathroom and Kensi heard water running as she jogged downstairs to get the Parenting For Dummies book.

She flipped through the pages and scanned them for any tips about babies that would not stop crying. She grimly took in the facts about fevers in infants, and started to pull apart the bags of items Deeks had picked up on his last shopping trip. There, at the bottom of the last bag, was a first aid kit, and in it were a digital thermometer and some Baby Tylenol.

She came back into the nursery to see that Deeks had taken Annie’s sleepsuit off her and was patting her body carefully with a cool compress.

“Here,” said Kensi, handing him the thermometer. “Hold it under her armpit until it beeps. It it’s above a hundred degrees the book says that we have to ring her doctor.”

“We can’t do that, Kensi,” Deeks said as Annie tried to bat the mystery item away. “We can’t tell anyone we’re not her parents.”

“The emergency room then,” Kensi said anxiously.

The thermometer beeped.

“A hundred and one,” Deeks said ominously.

“Get her dressed, I’ll get the car ready,” Kensi replied immediately, but before either of them could move Annie suddenly shrieked and convulsed in her crib. Her eyes rolled back in her head, she vomited and her little limbs went stiff.

“Annie!” Kensi yelled, horrified at what she saw was happening to the poor baby.

After an agonising thirty seconds or so, Annie stopped convulsing and began crying weakly again. Deeks grabbed her from the crib, wrapped her hurriedly in a blanket and bolted for the door, Kensi hot on his heels.

“Pacific Medical Centre is closest,” Kensi said, grabbing the keys to the van.

“Go,” he said grimly, not bothering to put Annie, still crying, into her car seat.

Kensi put her foot down and blasted the minivan out onto the deserted street at top speed.  
She used every trick she knew to cut time off the drive to the hospital, speeding through intersections and ignoring traffic signals. She was probably clocking up enough fines to make Hetty want to attack her with her letter opener, but Kensi simply didn’t care. Getting Annie to the emergency room was far more important.

She pulled up in the ambulance bay and started screaming for help as soon as she opened the door. Nurses in scrubs piled out of the entrance to the hospital, took one look at Deeks’ ashen face and the weakly crying Annie, and took charge.

A tall doctor prised Annie out of Deeks’ grip and started barking questions about what had happened. Between them they managed to recount her sudden fever, vomiting and terrifying convulsions.

“Wait here,” he said tersely, gesturing to seats outside a closed door. He then disappeared through it, carrying Annie, followed by a trail of nurses.

One of them stopped and stayed with them.

“I know this is real scary,” she said kindly, “but we see babies with this kind of fever all the time. Nine time out of ten it turns out to be just fine. Wait here and I’ll bring you news as soon as we have it. What’s her name?”

“Annie,” Deeks said. “Annie Jackson.” He placed a restraining hand on Kensi’s arm. “Hurry, please.”

The nurse ducked into the room, and then the heavy door swung shut behind her.

Kensi opened her mouth to speak but found that the words stuttered and died in her throat. She felt the first tear escape and snake its way down her face, and then another. She inhaled deeply, and tried to rein in her emotions, but the tears just kept coming. She stopped herself from sobbing aloud, but the shudder of her shoulders was enough to alert her partner to her tears. He closed his arms around her and pulled her head into his shoulder. Her tears began to soak the cloth that stretched over the firm muscle there as he stroked her hair as gently as he stroked Annie’s.

“She’s so little,” she managed to say.

“You heard what the nurse said, most of the time it’s nothing serious,” Deeks told her, although his voice was thick with emotion. “She’s gonna be okay, Kensi.”

They sat slumped in the waiting chairs, looking up anxiously whenever they heard footfalls in the other room.

“This is where they brought you, you know,” Kensi said dully.

“Yeah, I remember,” he said into the top of her head.

“By the time I got here they had already completed the surgery, and you were lying on a gurney…” her voice hitched in her throat.

“Ssh,” he said. “I’m fine. I’m good now.”

“You were shot,” she corrected him stubbornly. “You were dying and I’m your partner and I wasn’t there to stop it!”

“Hey, none of that,” he told her gently. “Not your fault, Kensi. Not any of it.”

“I should have trained you better,” Kensi said firmly. “I should have told you more about tradecraft. I was a lousy partner and you almost died.”

“Look at me,” he said, putting a hand under her chin and forcing her to look upwards at him. “Not. Your. Fault. Even if you had tried to tell me more about my routine, I wouldn’t have listened. I was too damn stubborn. You’re not the only person in the office who can play that card. I needed a wakeup call.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

“You’re not allowed to get shot anymore,” she said eventually.

He let out a puff of amused air, as close as he could get to a laugh right then.

“Well, that goes double for you,” he told her.

“This was not how I thought tonight would go,” she said, sighing.

“I’d hoped for another outcome too,” he admitted.

Before either could say anything else, the door to the treatment room opened and the tall doctor stepped out.

“Mr and Mrs Jackson? Annie’s going to be fine.”

Both Kensi and Deeks had jumped up when the door opened; Kensi could actually feel her knees start to weaken when the doctor made his pronouncement about Annie. Deeks arm shot out and dragged her in to his side, but Kensi had the feeling that she was providing as much support for him as he was for her.

“Annie’s going to be taken upstairs to paediatrics,” he told them. “But I think she’s suffering from an ear infection that caused a febrile seizure. They’re common for babies under a year old. They’re terrifying to watch, but cause no lasting harm. We’ll start her on antibiotics for the infection and keep her in for observation for a few hours, but she should be ready for discharge later on tonight.”

“Thank you,” Kensi said with feeling.

“Admittance papers should be ready and waiting upstairs with Annie,” the doctor continued.

“I should move the van, it’s in the ambulance bay,” Deeks said. He sounded relieved, but old, like tonight’s incident had added years to him. “You okay going up alone with her, honey? I’ll call Nana Hetty, then come up and find you.”

“Yeah,” Kensi said. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

A thought struck her.

“We let her go in the swimming pool today,” she said in horror. “Did we make her sick?”

“No,” the doctor assured her. “Being the pool wouldn’t have made her ill. She would have caught the infection somewhere else, probably from another child. Being in cool water probably would have helped her, actually.”

“Good,” said Kensi gratefully. “That’s good to know.”

“Your first?” asked the doctor.

Kensi and Deeks glanced at each other and nodded.

“Pretty soon this’ll all feel like old hat,” he said kindly. “You worry less with your third and fourth.”

“I think one’s enough for now, doc,” Deeks said fervently, speaking for both Kensi and himself. “Thank you.”

They shook hands with the doctor, who headed off to another room, and split up. The kind nurse from before escorted Annie and Kensi up to the paediatric ward and handed them off to a motherly looking woman, who made both Annie and Kensi comfortable.

Deeks arrived as Kensi was filling in the admission forms, and they both listened to the regimen of care that the paediatrician prescribed. They watched over the next few hours as her temperature dropped back to a normal level and her colour became healthier. She slept a little, then woke crying again. The nurse recommended trying to feed her, and to their surprise she latched onto the bottle immediately.

“She must be hungry enough not to care about there being no skin touching her,” Kensi said, yawning. It was four am and she was running on fumes, but the nurse had handed Annie to her and she was determined to see the feed through.

Once the paediatrician on duty had seen her feed and keep it down, she was happy to send Annie home with a prescription for infant fever medicine.

“She’ll probably want to sleep a lot more,” they were told. “That’s normal. But move her crib into your bedroom in case there are more seizures. Bring her straight back in if that happens, just to be on the safe side.”

The sun was just coming up as they piled back into the minivan and headed back to the safe house. Deeks drove this time, far more sedately than Kensi’s mad rush across town earlier. Kensi reported in to Hetty, who sounded as if she hadn’t slept that night either. Eric’s first job of the day would be to hack the hospital’s records and delete any reference to Annie Jackson from its database.

Back in the house, the thought of dragging Annie’s heavy crib into either of the other rooms was too much to bear.

“I’ll fence her off with pillows,” Kensi yawned. “She won’t be able to move.”

She built a baby-sized prison from pillows on her bed, and Deeks laid Annie down in her sleepsack in the middle of it. She had fallen asleep on the way back from the hospital and didn’t wake up as she was transferred from the baby carrier to her new bed.

Kensi yawned loudly as she kicked off her shoes. She didn’t even bother to undress as she collapsed onto the bed, she was that tired. She rolled onto her side and shut her eyes, only to open them suddenly as she felt the bed dip behind her as Deeks lay against her back.

“This is my bed,” she pointed out, yawning.

His arm slid around her waist and drew her closer to him.

“Mine’s too big,” he complained, his voice soft and very close to her ear. “And it’s too far away.”

They were both fully dressed, both exhausted, and there was a baby in the bed. Nothing was going to happen.

“Fine,” she said, drifting off to sleep. “Don’t snore.”

Deeks kissed her under her ear, and fell asleep too.

 

Kensi woke up to bright sunlight streaming through the windows. She hadn’t thought to pull the curtains shut last night. Her watch told her it was nine thirty in the morning; she had managed to grab about five hours of sleep.

She could hear Annie’s soft breaths, regular and even, and she could feel warm puffs of air as Deeks slept at her back.

There was a time, she remembered fondly, when her dating life had been simple. She liked someone, he liked her, they dated…easy. Now she was about to get tangled up with her partner, of all people, someone who was so unlike her previous lovers it was as if she were living in Bizarro World. So many things could go wrong, despite Hetty’s quiet encouragement for her to live in the moment.

And they still hadn’t said anything, or done anything. It had all been unfinished half sentences and innuendo. Maybe she had been imagining it, she thought, horrified. Maybe she had thought she had been trying to tell Deeks she was falling in love with him, when he was really just joking around. Maybe…

“The sound of your brain working overtime woke me up,” Deeks muttered in her ear, his voice heavy with sleep and sexy as hell. He yawned and nuzzled her neck, his blond stubble scratching in a delicious way against her skin. The hand resting lightly on her stomach began to rub it in small, circular motions. “Go back to sleep.”

“I can’t,” Kensi said softly. “Too much on my mind.”

“Are you thinking about me?” he asked, his hand slipping up under the t-shirt she was wearing. His t-shirt, she realised; she had just pulled a pair of jeans on the night before, when it got cool, and left his t-shirt on.

“Yes,” she admitted, staring straight ahead at the nest of pillows.

“Excellent,” he breathed, and his enthusiasm cut straight through her apprehension and made her laugh.

He tugged her until she rolled over to face him.

“Hi,” he said, reaching out a hand to brush a lock of hair from her eyes. “I’ve been thinking about you too.”

His sincerity was clear.

“And what have you been thinking?” she asked, letting her hand stroke his back.

He smiled, and leant in to kiss her.

“No!” she said, trying to scoot backwards. “Morning breath!”

“The years I’ve spent wanting this to happen, and you think I care about morning breath?” he demanded.

“We’ve only known each other for a year,” she said, letting her hand slip lower, towards his jeans.

“Oh, like I haven’t been waiting for you my whole life,” he said flippantly, his eyes revealing the truth of the statement.

“Oh,” she said softly, and then she couldn’t say anything else because he moved forwards and kissed her.

It started small, the kiss; he touched his lips carefully to hers, kissing her so gently it was as if he thought she would recoil from his touch instead of sink into it as she did. She moved her hand up into his hair, allowing it to slip through her fingers as she took control of the kiss, forcing his lips open, invading his mouth with her tongue. Once he was convinced that she wasn’t going to pull away, he fought back for control, rolling her underneath him and grinding his hips into hers. In retaliation she arched up, sending just about the right amount of friction to all the right places. He groaned into her neck as she rocked against him, her hands alternating between sweeping along the expanse of his back and squeezing his ass. She discovered in delight that his ears were incredibly sensitive, and if she nibbled on the top of his ear he made a strange, panting noise followed by a groan.

She liked that groan; it always preceded a dirty grind of his hips and a renewed focus on what he was doing before.

She had his shirt off him and thrown haphazardly aside when Annie decided to let out a pleasant morning gurgle. Deeks stopped what he was doing, his hands on Kensi’s breasts, to stare in horror at the pillow nest on the bed.

“Oh my God, Annie!” he said, scandalised.

Kensi sighed. “Ten minutes, and you’re already calling out for another woman in bed,” she said grumpily.

“Kensi! There’s a baby right there,” he hissed, scrambling off her and retreating to a socially safe distance.

“It’s all right, she can’t see us, we haven’t warped her,” Kensi told him, sitting up and tugging her t-shirt (Deeks was never getting it back now) into place.

“Thank God for that,” Deeks said vehemently. He shifted from the bed and went to check on the baby.

“She’s still a bit warm,” he observed. “We’d better give her the meds the hospital gave us.”

“You get them, and a bottle,” Kensi said, pulling herself out of bed reluctantly. “I’ll change her.”

 

Deeks loved Annie, he really did, but she was the epitome of cock-block right then. He felt a little guilty about thinking of a baby, and a sick baby even, in that kind of way, but a quick glance at the front of his pants made his situation kind of obvious.

He pulled one of the bottles he’d made up yesterday from the fridge, warmed it and pulled the meds from the paper bag the hospital had put them in. He could hear Kensi moving about upstairs and before the bottle had warmed through properly she appeared in the kitchen, a changed Annie in her arms.

“You wanna give her to me?” he asked, holding out his arms. “You can go shower.”

“I was about to make the same offer,” she said, smiling.

“That sounds fun,” he said, unable to stop himself from drifting to her side. “You could come and join me. Or I could wait and watch you feed Annie first, then we could shower. Best of both worlds.”

“I thought you wanted to keep things PG around the baby,” Kensi teased. “You think you could watch me feed her without getting all excited?”

Her glance flicked down to the front of his jeans, which hadn’t subsided much, and she grinned at him.

“You’re evil,” he said mildly, taking the opportunity to swoop down for one quick kiss before he left the kitchen.

“Make sure that shower’s a cold one!” she called after him, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

 

When he came back down to the living area, he found Kensi on the couch with her laptop and Annie on the floor with her activity mat and a ton of the stimulating toys they had bought her. In the background one of the Baby Einstein DVDs played. Annie, to his amusement, was completely ignoring it in favour of chasing down an interesting-looking toy block that was just out of reach.

“This place is a mess,” he said mildly, taking in the piles of toys, the stacks of books and the general detritus that looking after an infant created.

“Why?” said Kensi, staring around the room. “What’s wrong with it?”

Deeks shook his head and laughed.

“I should have known,” he said, dropping down beside her on the couch. “You’re not exactly a neat-freak, lady bug.”

She stared at him, confused.

“Lady bug?” she repeated, disdainfully.

“I was going through some pet names for you in the shower,” he said cheerfully. “I like lady bug.”

“I don’t,” Kensi pointed out. “I hate cute names.”

“Sorry sunflower, but you’re going to have to put up with them,” Deeks said, rummaging around behind him. “What the hell am I sitting on?”

He pulled Bunny from out between the sofa cushions where it had been wedged.

“Can’t lose that,” he said cheerfully, tossing it to her. “Annie would freak out.”

Kensi caught the stuffed toy, but frowned as her computer screen froze.

“Oh, not again,” she complained, bashing the keys. “This is the second time it’s done this.”

“What?” said Deeks, removing the computer from Kensi’s knees. “What are those numbers?”

“I don’t know,” Kensi told him. “It’s not the blue screen of death, but it freezes, those numbers flash up, then all of a sudden, it’s back to normal. Look, there you go.”

True to her word, the computer screen stopped showing the long string of numbers and returned to her email screen.

“I was going to ask Eric to take a look at it yesterday,” she told him. “But I got distracted. It’s all your fault anyway. If you hadn’t have spilt that can of Diet Coke on it, it would still be working.”

“Hey, not fair!” Deeks protested. “I was only holding that can because I knew you’d want it after staring at the computer screen for three hours. And I only dropped it because you stretched and did that thing with your arms and all of I sudden I could see right down your t-shirt.”

“My breasts made you clumsy, and it’s my fault?” Kensi snorted.

“You shouldn’t have such awesome ones,” Deeks lamented, shaking his head. “They’re lethal weapons.”

“You’re so full of bullshit,” she scoffed, throwing Bunny back at him. It sailed past his outstretched hand and landed on the laptop keyboard, and the screen went crazy again.

“That’s weird,” Deeks said, frowning. “Did it do that again last time?”

“No,” Kensi said, a matching frown on her face. “It was fine. But…no, it’s stupid.”

“Go on,” Deeks said. “Tell me.”

Kensi shook her head. “It’s really stupid,” she said.

“I’ve said some very stupid things before,” he said dryly. “I doubt you could top them. Tell me.”

Kensi sighed. “The last time it did this, I was trying to feed Annie at the same time, and the bunny was near the computer. I moved, the bunny fell on the floor, and the computer came back online.”

“Hmm,” said Deeks thoughtfully. “Only one way to be sure.”

He removed the stuffed toy from the keyboard, and the screen blinked back into normality again. He placed the bunny back on the keyboard, and the familiar flash of numbers came back.

“Well played, pumpkin,” Deeks said softly, just before Kensi punched him in the arm.

“The decryption key must be inside the bunny,” Kensi said, snatching it from him. She squeezed the toy carefully.

“There’s something hard in here,” she said. “About the size of a small flash drive.”

“Get it out,” Deeks said. “But…” he tailed off as Kensi produced yet another knife from an unexpected pocket.

“What?” she asked impatiently, letting the blade flick open.

“Just try not to destroy the bunny, okay? Annie loves that thing.”

Kensi nodded and peered at the toy. “It’s been repaired recently,” she reported. “See the stitching here? Different thread to the rest of the toy.”

Using the very tip of the blade she expertly sliced through the new stitches. She carefully slipped one of her fingers inside the toy and hooked the small, hard object.

“What is it?” she asked. “It doesn’t look like any flash drive I’ve ever seen.”

“Whatever it is, it’s got infra-red capabilities,” Deeks pointed out. “See, right here?

Dollars to doughnuts, that’s what’s been interfering with the laptop. That’s got infra-red scanning too.”

“All computers used by NCIS and the other agencies do,” Kensi said excitedly. “I bet the Tuckers hid the flash drive in the bunny to hide it in case whoever was tapping their line came after them.”

“We need to get this to ops,” Deeks said, standing up. “You call it in, I’ll put Annie in the car.”

He heard Kensi tersely report the situation to Hetty as he bundled Annie into a blanket and grabbed the diaper bag. Kensi had been treating it as a go-bag, and it was fully stocked with everything they could conceivably need, including her recently prescribed medicine.

“Eric says we have to get to ops fast,” Kensi said grimly. “Apparently every time that chip connects with an infrared scanner it broadcasts the decryption code.”

“Could the strike team find us?” Deeks asked as they piled into the minivan.

“Eric says it’s likely they could trace it,” Kensi told him. “Hetty’s told the surveillance car to follow us to ops.”

“I don’t like this,” Deeks fretted. “The surveillance team should take Annie and put her in another safe house while we go to ops.”

Both agents glanced back over their shoulders at the baby buckled into the backseat.

“I don’t want her out of my sight,” Kensi said firmly, and that was the end of that conversation.

“Where are Callen and Sam?” Deeks said, swearing under his breath as they hit traffic and had to stop at a set of lights.

“In ops with Hetty, waiting for us,” Kensi said, checking the side mirrors.

Her face suddenly showed alarm.

“Grey Chevy on our six,” she reported. “Same one as before.”

Deeks checked his mirror and swore again.

“Red four by four,” he reported. “Coming up on the other side.”

The lights changed and Deeks put his foot down, barging past other traffic and forcing his way through the mid-morning congestion.

“The Challenger would be nice right about now,” he said through gritted teeth. “Or even your Cadillac. Anything but a stupid minivan!”

Kensi, who was on the phone to ops reporting their tails, spared him a glance of frustration.

“Any chance of some green lights?” she snapped down the phone. “Outrunning an assault team isn’t easy when you’re driving a tank.”

Seconds later, all the lights ahead of them turned to green and the general speed of the traffic picked up. Behind them there was the sound of gunfire, rubber peeling off and the unmistakable sound of a car overturning.

Kensi peered out of her window and cursed.

“They got the surveillance car,” she said grimly. “Can this thing go any faster?”

“No,” Deeks said, swerving around traffic and nearly side-swiping another car off the road. “We’re too far out from ops, and they’re not picky about firing their weapons in traffic. If they don’t get us, they’re gonna get somebody innocent.”

“Or we will,” Kensi said as the minivan was thrown sideways to avoid another collision.

“I’ve got an idea,” Deeks said. “But you’re not gonna like it.”

“Go on,” she said, pulling out her gun and checking its readiness.

“Mall over there,” he said, gesturing to the wrong side of the road. “We ditch the minivan, blend into the crowd, Sam and Callen come to pick us up.”

“How are we supposed to end up all the way over there?” Kensi asked in disbelief. “There’s no exit for miles.”

“Hold on,” was all Deeks said as he pulled the minivan into the centre lane of traffic.

Immediately the pursuit cars started to flank him, one in each lane either side. Deeks coaxed an extra burst of speed from the van, then suddenly hit the brakes, the mini-van shuddering to a stop. The two other cars shot past him, unprepared for his unorthodox move. He then stepped on the gas and turned the van, aiming it at the central barrier between their road and the road going in the opposite direction.

Kensi cursed and cars screeched to a halt, horns blaring, as Deeks ploughed through the barrier and joined the stream of traffic heading in the opposite direction.

“I told you that you wouldn’t like it,” he said, panting, as he manoeuvred the beaten-up minivan through the lanes of traffic.

“You are insane,” she said, fumbling with her phone to update Hetty on their plan and location.

“But hot, right?” Deeks asked as he rounded the corner to the mall parking lot and pulled into a parking space.

Kensi rolled her eyes at him, but she couldn’t keep from smiling.

“Yeah,” Deeks said as they pulled open the minivan doors and got Annie from her seat. “You think I’m hot.”

Annie, against all odds, had fallen asleep during their chase.

“Into the mall,” Deeks said, hustling Kensi and Annie along. “We need to find somewhere to hide.”

“Quickly,” Kensi said tersely, as a grey Chevy and a red four by four, by now as bashed up as their mini-van was, came hurtling into the parking lot. Six men, all large with close cropped hair that screamed ‘military background’ piled out of the cars.

They ran into the building and looked around desperately.

“Up there,” Deeks said, pointing to the upper level of shops. “Baby store, perfect camouflage. Take Annie and hide, I’ll distract them.”

“There are six of them!” Kensi hissed. “You can’t take on six armed men!”

“Go!” Deeks snapped. “Take Annie and the chip and go!”

Kensi knew that he was right, but abandoning him felt wrong, on many, many levels. She nodded curtly and left, ducking into a door that led to the stairs to the next level. She was halfway up them when she heard the first shots fired and the screams of shoppers on the main concourse. She ran, Annie now wailing in fear. Kensi burst through the door onto the upper level and barged her way through crowds of scared shoppers that were making for the exits. Casting about her she saw the baby store Deeks had told her about and headed for it.  
Inside the store, parents and their children were huddled down behind displays of goods, and store assistants hid behind cash registers.

Kensi skidded to a halt and looked about wildly.

“Over here!” hissed a young man, who had pushed his pregnant partner behind him. “Get down!”

“Agent Kensi Blye, NCIS,” Kensi said, pulling her badge from her jacket pocket and flipping it open.

“David Oakes, LAPD,” he replied automatically.

“Great,” she sighed with relief. “Six shooters downstairs. My partner is down there alone, back up is on the way. I need you to look after this baby and call it in to the LAPD.”

“I’m off duty, I don’t have a gun,” he warned, accepting a screaming, kicking Annie.

“You don’t need one, just…if they come in here, she’s yours, you understand? You can’t let them take her.” Kensi said firmly.

“Okay,” Officer Oakes said grimly. “I’ve got this, ma’am.”

Kensi took one last look at Annie and ran back out onto what was now an empty corridor. She ducked behind some large plant pots for cover and tried to assess the situation. A quick peek over the balustrade showed that Deeks had taken out two of the shooters, who were lying on the floor in large pools of blood. That was good.

However, the other four shooters were no longer in sight, and neither was Deeks. Gunfire suddenly sounded from further back into the mall, and Kensi ran towards it.  
Horrified, she saw from her vantage point that Deeks was trapped behind a makeshift barricade made up of an up-turned food cart. The other four men were firing relentlessly at him, making it impossible for him to return fire or to find other cover.

Kensi stood up from her hiding place, aimed her gun and fired. She downed one and clipped another before she had to throw herself back down on the ground as shots whistled above her head. She heard the familiar retort of Deeks’ Beretta fire off another couple of rounds, and then she popped up again to draw the fire of the shooters away from him

Kensi was on the last of her ammunition when she saw two familiar figures rush up from the main entrance to the mall. Sam and Callen yelled at the shooters to put their weapons down, but it was clear that surrender was not an option for the attackers. Within a few minutes, all the remaining shooters were dead or dying.

“Deeks!” Kensi yelled, coming up out of her cover position. She ran anxiously towards a set of stairs, all the time peering down towards the main concourse towards the bullet-ridden food cart. Her heart was in her mouth and time seemed to slow down to a dull drag as she threw herself down the stairs and out into the open. Callen and Sam turned to look at her, assessing her condition with a practiced eye as they continued to ensure that the scene was secure.

After what seemed like an ice age had gone past, a hand gripped the side of the food cart and a familiar shock of blonde hair poked out above it.

“I’m ok,” he called. “Kensi, you good?”

Kensi skidded around the aide of the food cart and saw him looking sweaty and dishevelled, but otherwise unhurt. He was kneeling on the floor, surrounded by spent cartridges and spilled food. Kensi skidded on something that had fallen, and slipped. Deeks reached out, lightning fast, and grabbed her arm as she went down, guiding her into his lap. They both fell back together against the cart.

“Hi there, Bambi,” he said, grinning. He smoothed back a lock of hair that had escaped her ponytail. “You falling for me?”

“That’s the worse pun I ever heard in my life,” she said breathlessly, then kissed him soundly, pinning him against the side of the impromptu barricade as she invaded his mouth. Only the need for air forced them apart; Kensi nipped his lip sharply with her teeth as she pulled back as a punishment for worrying her and getting shot at.

“If that’s your reaction to my puns, I’m gonna have to do that more often,” he said dazedly.

“Scene is clear,” Callen called. “You guys okay?”

“We’re good,” Kensi called as she scrambled out of Deeks’ lap and helped him stand.

“Where’s Annie?” Deeks said urgently.

“Upstairs with an off duty LAPD officer and his family in the baby store,” Kensi told him.

“Where’s the bunny?” Deeks asked, with the same level of urgency.

Kensi tugged it from her jacket pocket. “The chip is safe,” she assured him, handing him the stuffed animal with its precious contents. “You fill in the others, I’ll go and collect Annie.”

She left Deeks explaining what had happened to Sam and Callen while they waited for LAPD to arrive and secure the scene. She headed back upstairs to the baby store, where she was pleased to see that Officer Oakes had got all the staff and customers into the stockroom at the back of the store, out of harm’s way. He remained lurking behind the cash register to keep an eye on the situation.

“It’s over,” she told him. “We got them. Everyone is safe now.”

“Thank God,” he said, letting out a long breath. “This is my first week on the job, I didn’t think anything like this would happen when I was out shopping with my girlfriend, you know?”

“You did well here,” she said patting him on the arm. “You got all the civilians hidden away, and you called it in.”

From inside the store it was possible to hear the sound of many sirens from the parking lot.

“And you guaranteed the safety of a very important NCIS protectee,” Kensi told him. “I’ll make sure that there’s a commendation in this for you, officer.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, smiling. “I’ll just go and tell everybody it’s safe to come out now.”

He left her to go out of an unobtrusive door at the side of the store, and a minute later he returned with Annie, who was still crying.

“Stay here until officers come to fetch you all,” Kensi warned. “It’s not pretty down there, and these kids shouldn’t see it.”

“We’ll wait,” he promised, and Kensi said goodbye.

She talked quietly to Annie as she walked back downstairs to the rest of her team. The baby quietened a little, but she was still unhappy and grizzling.

“How is she?” Deeks asked, opening his arms for the baby.

“A little warm - and more than a little frightened,” Kensi told him. “But we can’t give her any more medicine for a few hours.”

“The hospital rang just before you did,” Callen told them. “Both Tuckers were doing so well that the doctors brought them out of their comas last night. Captain Tucker woke up a few hours ago and has been asking for Annie.”

“That’s great news,” Kensi said, stroking the baby’s head. “Hear that, Annie? Your mom woke up!”

“Let’s head back to ops and hand over the decryption key,” Deeks said. “Then we can run Annie over to the hospital. How are the guys in the surveillance car?”

“Cuts and bruises, mostly,” Sam told them. “They’re already being checked over at the hospital. Their car rolled but they were wearing their seatbelts so they didn’t get too badly hurt.”

They headed out to the parking lot and looked at the remains of the mini-van in horror. The shooters had obviously opened fire on it before heading into the mall; bullet holes peppered the sides and engine block and all the windows were smashed. Paint had been stripped along the sides due to Deeks’ aggressive driving, and there was substantial damage to the front from where he had knocked his way through the central barrier between lanes. The diaper bag, miraculously, had not been touched.

“You may have to drive us back to ops,” Deeks concluded.

“Hetty’s not gonna be happy about that,” Sam said knowledgeably.

“Well, the next time Hetty wants us to outrun six armed gunmen, she can give us something that can hit seventy,” Kensi said flatly.

The car seat wasn’t salvageable, and there wasn’t really room for it in the Challenger anyway. The back seat was so small that Kensi and Deeks were forced to sit incredibly close together, but neither minded. Kensi felt the heat of him pressed along her right hand side and revelled in it; if just one of those bullets had found their intended mark, he could be dead right now, another cold body on the mall floor. She shivered at the thought of it, and her face must have broadcast her feelings because she felt his larger hand wrap around hers and squeeze it firmly.

“We’re okay,” he told her quietly as he leant over her to tickle Annie under the chin. “You’re alive and I’m alive and we’re okay.”

“I know,” Kensi replied, but something primal deep inside her needed him to be naked underneath her so she could check for herself if he was bruised or broken. She felt a rush of frustration at being trapped in too small a space with too many people when all she wanted was to feel the press of his body against hers. That must have been transmitted to him too, because he stared at her steadily and whispered, “Soon.”

All she could do was nod, and hold Annie a little more firmly.

Hetty did ream them for the destruction of the mini-van and the completely illegal move on the road, but she did also grudgingly acknowledge their desperate state. They escaped with a glare and a warning never to do that again, and they decided that they had come off lightly. Annie needed another diaper change, and it was time to medicate and feed her again. Kensi and Deeks traded off tasks as they went about filing their reports, ignoring the amused looks thrown at them by other NCIS staff as they passed their section of the bullpen.

“You two are getting pretty good at that,” Sam observed.

“Well, practice makes perfect,” Deeks said airily as he shook a rattle for Annie that she immediately grabbed and stuck in her mouth. “You’d be good at it too if you and Callen had been on babysitting duty.”

“I vote that the next time we get a case with a baby, Sam and Callen get to be the parents,” Kensi said, looking up from her furious typing.

“Plenty of gay dads these days,” Deeks agreed.

“What makes you think I’d adopt with Sam?” asked Callen, coming down the stairs from ops. “I’d be looking for a good father figure for my hypothetical adopted baby.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Sam cut in, annoyed. “I’d be a great father. It’s you that would be the problem.”

“Really?” Callen scoffed. “You’d have the kid tied to a kiddie SEAL training program.”

“I’d provide discipline, G,” Sam told him. “You’d let the kid run riot. I bet you’d let him have sugar before bed time.”

Kensi and Deeks watched as their friends started bickering about the fate of their hypothetical child, and how clearly the other would be a negative influence. Kensi and Deeks left them to it when they started to argue about names.

Hetty had got one of the office staff to go out and buy a replacement carry seat, and they put it into Kensi’s Cadillac. The hospital reported that Captain Tucker was awake, stable and lucid, and desperate to see her child. Commander Tucker had just come around, and had been moved into a joint room with his wife. Armed guards still stood watch on their door, but that was just a formality now.

Fingerprints taken from the dead gunmen at the mall had identified them all as ex military men, dishonourably discharged for acts of extreme violence or conduct unbecoming. Doris the forensic accounting specialist had started tracking all of their bank accounts and found payments from a source in Monaco. Some skilled computer work on her behalf and that of Eric and Nell identified the originator of the payments, a gun runner well known to European authorities for having links with a number of terror groups. NCIS teams based in Nice had been dispatched to round him up and arrest him. When they had left ops, Hetty had been watching the live-action feed of NCIS teams surrounding the man while he was eating on the terrace of a restaurant in Monte Carlo.

The armed guards on the door checked their ID cards and badges, and let them in to the private room. Commander Tucker was asleep, still hooked up to a heart rate monitor that showed a steady rhythm and let out reassuring beeps every few seconds. He was attached to several IV lines and was bandaged pretty heavily, but it was clear that he was going to pull through. Captain Tucker was awake and propped up in bed with the aid of pillows. She too had several IV lines, but she was a healthier colour than her husband and was free of any machinery.

“Anne!” she said immediately, stretching out her arms. “Oh, Anne!”

Deeks carefully deposited Annie into her mother’s arms, and the captain immediately burst into tears.

“Thank you so much,” she said, her gaze not lifting from her baby for an instant. “You don’t know how grateful I am for what you’ve done for her, and for us.”

“It was an honour,” Kensi told the captain, meaning every word of it.

“She’s been eating?” the captain asked. “No, wait, I can tell she’s been eating, she’s put on a few pounds.”

“We’ve had to bottle feed her,” Deeks said apologetically.

“I can’t feed her right now,” the captain said mournfully. “Too many post-op drugs in my system.”

“She’d only feed if she felt bare skin against her cheek,” Kensi told her. “She was remembering you.”

The captain smiled, and traced the contours of the baby’s face with a finger.

“She’s warm,” she noted. “Another ear infection?”

“Yeah,” said Deeks. “But the doctor gave us some medication and she’s a lot better.”

“Did she seize?” asked the captain. “She did that three weeks ago and it scared the living crap out of us.”

“Yes,” said Kensi, “But we got her straight to the emergency room.”

The captain nodded. “You must have been terrified,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“No biggie,” Deeks said dismissively, forgetting his night of exhaustion and fear. “We’re just glad that it wasn’t more serious.”

“Tell me more,” begged the captain. “Has she been sleeping? Where have you lived?” She looked down at the simple jeans and seafoam green t-shirt that Kensi had picked out for her. “These aren’t her clothes.”

“We had to buy a lot for her,” Kensi said simply. “We weren’t allowed to take anything from the crime…I mean, your apartment.”

“It’s a nice colour,” the captain said, fingering the fabric. “I like to put her in colours, but her father likes to put her in pink.”

Kensi and the captain made the same disgusted face.

“You took the rabbit though, didn’t you,” the captain said shrewdly.

“The first NCIS agent on the scene, the one that took Annie into our custody, took it from her crib,” Deeks told her. “He thought that you would want her to have it if…”

He tailed off. There was no need to finish that particular sentence.

“It’s a good thing he did,” the captain said briskly. “When Nathan figured out that someone was trying to tap our secure comm line, he told me to hide the decryption key in the last place anybody would look. The bunny was mine when I was a baby. I gave it to Anne when she was born.”

“You knew that someone was trying to tap your line?” Deeks asked, his brow furrowed with thought.

“We suspected it, but when we reported it to our CO he thought we were imagining it,” the captain said with a scowl. “He didn’t like the fact that I decided to have a baby and disrupt his schedule for developing the new encryption algorithm. He hated the fact that Nathan wanted to exercise his right to paternal leave and be home with Anne and I. It was his idea to install the comm line in the first place, so that Nathan and I could keep working while we were home with the baby.”

“Really,” Kensi said slowly, looking at Deeks. “And you say he didn’t take your warnings about a security breach seriously?”

“The day Nathan went onto base to report them, he came back having bought two handguns. He told me that he didn’t trust our CO and thought that he was the one responsible for the hack.”

The captain looked over at her husband.

“I didn’t believe him at first,” she said softly. “I thought he was being paranoid. We’d been arguing a lot lately – we’d spent so much time together, Anne had been sick, I still couldn’t get around as much as I wanted to because of my C-section. This seemed so unlikely, you know? But the more hours I logged decrypting information sent back from missions gone wrong, the more I began to suspect that there was a leak of information somewhere. That’s when I switched to the new algorithm I had devised.”

“Let me guess,” said Deeks, glancing at Kensi. “Not long after you switched out your encryption algorithm for one that couldn’t be decrypted, the strike team turned up?”

“Two days later,” the captain said bitterly. “When I told Nathan what I had done, he started to pack our stuff up. We were arguing about whether it was necessary to run when the door was kicked down and they started shooting.”

She sighed heavily, and looked at her husband. “When he wakes up and finds out what happened, I am going to be on the receiving end of a hell of a lot of smugness.”

“We’re gonna have to call this in,” Kensi told the captain. “What do you want to do with Annie?”

“She’ll be staying here with me,” the captain said firmly. “I’m not letting her out of my sight.”

Kensi nodded, and felt strangely sad. She’d gone from being terrified of babies and resentful of her mission to being having feelings that she had to admit were faintly maternal, all in the space of a few days. One glance at Deeks and she could tell that he was feeling the same way.

“We’ll get someone to bring you some of the stuff we bought Annie; some toys, some changes of clothes, formula and diapers,” Deeks offered. “She likes her activity mat too.”

“But be careful,” Kensi warned, standing up. “She’s rolling over now, so she may escape from the mat. We can bring the playpen over if you like.”

“Thank you,” the captain said gratefully. “For everything you’ve done for us. You’ll never know how much we owe you for keeping Anne safe.”

Kensi felt the urge to kiss the child goodbye, but the way that the captain was clutching her to her chest made her stop. Annie had her mother now. She didn’t need Kensi or Deeks anymore.

“Goodbye,” she said, and she left the room, Deeks close on her heels.

“I thought giving Annie back to her mom and dad would feel good,” Deeks said in the elevator. “But instead I feel…” he trailed off. “I’m not sure,” he said eventually. “Not sad. She’s in the best place for her. But…”

“I think I’m going to miss having her around,” Kensi replied after a little careful thought.

“I’m not gonna miss the diaper changes,” Deeks admitted. “But I know what you mean.”

They remained silent as the elevator deposited them into the main lobby of the hospital. Now that they were free to use their cell phones, they called Hetty to report Captain Tucker’s version of events. Hetty was convinced that the naval officer was selling information to the Monaco-based arms dealer. Sam and Callen were dispatched to bring the Tucker’s CO to the boat house for interrogation.

Kensi and Deeks returned to the safe house to pack their go-bags and prepare the house for cleaning by the specialist in-house crews that were contacted by the agency. They put things that the Tuckers would need for Annie in a pile ready to be taken to the hospital, and stacked the rest of the baby gear neatly for Hetty to put into storage. It would all be used again at some time, they had no doubt.

They were still there when the cleaning and packing crews arrived, so they were able to show them exactly what could be given to the Tuckers straight away. The woman in charge listened carefully to their instructions, made a series of notes on her clipboard and nodded decisively.

“I need your rings,” she said, when they had finished. “Hetty said they had to be returned.”  
Kensi hadn’t thought about her ring in days. After a while, the enormous diamond had begun to feel normal on her finger. The waiting woman brought out the Tiffany boxes Hetty had flourished a few days ago, and the carefully replaced the rings in the boxes and signed the docket stating they had returned them.

The woman pocketed the boxes, bade them a cheerful farewell and got on with her job of returning the house to its state of pristine readiness. Kensi’s phone beeped and alerted her to an email just as Deeks’ did the same.

“It’s the mental health form,” she said, scanning the email with the ease of someone who had done this a hundred timed before. “An undercover op lasting three days or more requires a minimum of forty eight hours enforced leave, blah blah blah. The usual.”

Deeks grinned.

“Forty eight hours,” he said, his eyes twinkling with glee. “Forty eight hours where we don’t have to go into work, and Callen and Sam have to do all the paperwork regarding the arrest of a high ranking naval officer on charges of espionage and treason.”

“Forty eight hours,” Kensi said thoughtfully. “We don’t have to have our phones on.”

“We don’t have to have our clothes on,” Deeks said eagerly.

Kensi grinned. “I’m up for that,” she told him. “Your place or mine?”

He grinned back. “Neither, if you give me five minutes and the keys to your car.”

“Alright,” she said slowly, intrigued. “I’ll just go and check we put everything in the right box for Annie.”

Leaving him to talk excitedly into his cell phone, she went back inside the house to the boxes. They were made up of Annie’s clothes, mainly, with some of her toys added. Kensi dug through another box and found the book of fairy tales that Deeks had insisted she buy, and slipped it into the box for Annie. Wearing pink wouldn’t be so bad if Annie grew up to know how to act like the women in the book, she supposed.

She gave Deeks exactly five minutes, and returned outside. He was leaning against her car, waiting for her. Without speaking she pulled her keys from her pocket and tossed them to him, and he jumped into the driver’s seat.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Surprise,” he said, beaming at her. “You’ll find out soon.”

“Give me a clue,” she demanded.

“You’ll love it,” he said firmly.

“That’s not a clue!” she said.

“It’s all you’re getting,” he told her, amused at her impatience.

“Have you ever taken anyone else here?” she asked suddenly.

“No,” he said immediately. Ahead, traffic slowed down at a set of lights, and he took the opportunity to lean over and kiss her gently and chastely on the lips. “Never,” he said, pulling back to speak before kissing her again, this time with a little extra pressure. Kensi threaded her fingers through his hair and kept him in place as she reminded him just who he was kissing, by the simple expedient of ravaging his mouth and taking no prisoners.

“Good,” she said eventually, when she released him from the kiss. “You’d better not have.”

“Huh?” Deeks asked intelligently, just before the car before him sounded its horn angrily.

“Lights have changed,” Kensi pointed out smugly.

Deeks laughed and grabbed her hand, lacing her fingers through his before setting the car into motion again.

Kensi kept fidgeting on their drive, looking out of the window, trying to figure out where he was taking her. Before very long, the scenery started to look familiar.

“This is Sunset Boulevard,” she said in confusion. “What are we doing here?”

“You’ll see,” he said, smiling.

They kept driving along the road, taking the route they had driven a few days earlier, except this time when they approached the Beverly Hills Hotel Deeks swung the car into the driveway instead of driving by it.

“What are we doing here?” Kensi hissed as uniformed attendants appeared as if by magic, opening their doors and removing their small go-bags.

“It’s a surprise,” was all Deeks had time to say before the main doors to the hotel were flung open by the liveried doormen and a florid, overweight gentleman in an immaculate suit flew out to throw his arms around Deeks.

“It’s so pink,” Kensi muttered, staring at the vast amount of pink stucco surrounding her.

“Simon!” he said breathlessly. “So glad to see you again!”

“It’s been too long, Robert,” Deeks said, returning the embrace. “You’ve been well?”

“Of course, of course,” dismissed the older man. “And you? I worry about you, with your dangerous job.” He dropped his voice on the last two words and looked around suspiciously, as if searching for eavesdroppers.

“I’ve been good,” Deeks reassured him. “But I’d like you to meet someone special, Robert. This is Special Agent Kensi Blye. Kensi, this is Robert Vaughn, general manager of The Beverly Hills Hotel.”

“Any friend of Simon’s is a friend of mine,” Robert said to Kensi, embracing her as well. “After that nasty business with the stolen jewels, we owe Simon a lot. He quite preserved our reputation, you know.”

“Stolen jewels?” Kensi asked Deeks, but he shook his head.

“Sorry Kensi,” he said blithely. “But there are some things I just can’t tell you. Hush-hush. Highest security clearance. You understand.”

Kensi pursued her lips and tried to fight back a grin. She was only partly successful.

“I’m so glad that you finally took me up on my offer of hospitality!” Robert went on, clicking his fingers in the air.

One of the uniformed attendants ran up and took the keys to the Cadillac from Deeks’ hand.

“Full valet,” the manager called. “I want that car spotless inside and out, Harris.”

“Make sure you check the glove compartment for Twinkie wrappers,” Deeks said solemnly. “My girl’s a fiend for junk food, aren’t you?”

“Aren’t we all, dear,” sighed Robert, patting his ample stomach.

The young man nodded solemnly, then hopped in the car and drove it away.

“Follow me!” Robert said, turning smartly on his heel and moving off into the hotel. “You called at just the right time, Simon. The Presidential Bungalow is available.”

The manager held out his hand at the front desk, and the woman behind it immediately handed over two key cards.

“Come, come, come!” Robert demanded, and Kensi and Deeks trailed after him.

“Oh my God, is that Madonna going into the bar?” Kensi whispered, craning her neck to look.

“I hope not, she was a lousy tipper,” Deeks said seriously as Robert led them out onto a garden terrace and along a beautifully landscaped path. They passed the famous pink bungalows where the celebrities that stayed at the hotel chose to stay, and continued on past a beautiful rose garden.

“Here we are,” Robert said triumphantly. “Our premier bungalow, all yours for the next two days, you lucky young people! Come in!”

He swiped one of the cards through the lock and the door opened into one of the most luxurious places Kensi had ever been in.

“This is the great room,” Robert began, whisking them through into an enormous room with a twelve foot ceiling. “As you can see, your private waterfall edged plunge pool is outside. It has underwater speakers, and is right next to your outdoor workout area and dining table for six.”

He gestured at the floor to ceiling glass doors. “All this is controlled with this,” he said, throwing a slim and expensive looking remote control to Deeks. “It controls your Bang and Olufsen stereo, your 42 inch plasma screen and your fireplaces.”

Kensi blinked, trying to take in the sheer opulence of the place.

“Through here is your professional chef’s kitchen and your office area, as well as your two other bedrooms,” Robert told them, taking them on a small tour. “And over here is the master bedroom with its king sized bed and other amenities, including a private patio and a bathroom with a two person freestanding bathtub.”

“Your butler is on call twenty four seven, for anything you might require,” Robert went on. “And feel free to take the robes with you when you leave – my little gift.”

“Robert this is amazing,” Deeks said, staring around him. “This is far more than…”

“Hush,” the older man said, waving his hand at Deeks. “What you did that night saved this hotel from ruin, Simon. Trust me when I say that this is the very least I can do.”

Assured that they would be comfortable, and after urging them to call if they needed the slightest thing, the hotel manager swept out. The front door clicked closed softly and, no doubt, expensively.

“Wow,” said Kensi, letting one hand trail along the designer furniture that cost more than she would make in a year. “God, Deeks, I mean…wow.”

“I didn’t expect this,” he admitted, crossing the room to peer out of the window at the pool. “He said that I was welcome to come and stay whenever I wanted, but this…”

“He really likes you,” Kensi said, coming to stand behind him. “Whatever you did got you a friend for life.”

“A Saudi princess had over sixteen million dollars worth of jewellery go missing from her bungalow,” Deeks told her, turning to look at her. “I went undercover as hotel staff to try and find them. It turned out that one of the room service girls had taken a shine to them. I got them back before the princess sued the hotel, saving them a lot of bad publicity. In the hotel game, reputation is everything. And I cannot believe I’m wasting time talking about this with you when I could be kissing you.”

He pounced on her hungrily, forcing her to back up until the backs of her thighs met one of the couches. His momentum propelled her backwards, and they fell in a tangle of limbs onto the seat cushions.

“Smooth moves, Simon,” Kensi teased, tugging at the top of his earlobe with her teeth as she worked on the buckle of his belt. She couldn’t resist letting one of her hands drift along the front of his jeans, and she squeezed the slight bulge she found there. He groaned and the bulge swelled noticeably.

“They worked, didn’t they?” he managed to say as he pulled her t-shirt off over her head. His dextrous fingers found the clasps of her bra and quickly unfastened them, tossing the offending article away.

Kensi moaned low in her throat as he brought his head up level to her right breast and licked her nipple, curling his tongue to flick it slightly before he latched on and sucked firmly. She abandoned his belt in order to place her hands in his hair, keeping him in place.

“Don’t…stop…” she panted, feeling the scratch of his stubble rub at the delicate skin of her breast deliciously. The slight pain contrasted with the intense feelings of pleasure, heightening it, intensifying it. “Don’t you dare…don’t…”

His hand was on the other breast now, cupping its fullness, catching her other nipple between his fingers and rolling it gently, then more firmly when she pulled on his hair with a gasped order to “Keep going, damn it, harder…”

Luckily it seemed that Deeks spoke fluent Kensi, and knew what she was demanding him to do. He was hard enough to cut diamond, but his priority was exploring the topography of Kensi’s body with his mouth and hands. She was proving herself to be a bossy, demanding lover, often grabbing him and ordering him to touch, squeeze, bite or lick.

Deeks had absolutely no problem with that at all.

She had kicked off her shoes not long after they had fallen onto the couch, and although she grumbled about how long it took him, he was able to unfasten her jeans and tug them off her. He paused for a moment to admire her underwear – plain black cotton, so simple and yet so unbelievably sexy – before hooking a finger under the waistband and discarding them also.

She moved to undress him further, but he took her by the wrists and pushed them up above her head, shaking his own as he dipped his head to kiss her once, twice, three times.

“Me first,” he muttered, before kissing his way down the length of her body, grazing her nipples with his teeth, flicking his tongue out of her bellybutton which, he noticed with pleasure, contained a single baby-blue crystal.

She moved her hands, of course; Kensi wouldn’t be told what to do, ever. But she restrained herself to tangling her fingers in his hair. Not pushing, or tugging, but just reminding him of her presence. As if he needed reminding, when all around him was the sight and smell of her, musky and gorgeous and womanly and his.

He parted her folds with the fingers of one hand. She was already slick with her desire for him and he didn’t think it was possible but he grew even harder at the thought that he had inspired that in her, that she was naked and spread out and moaning for him.

She moaned loudly and wantonly as he licked a broad stripe up the centre of her, allowing his tongue to flick briefly inside her before focussing his attention carefully on her clit. He kept his tongue flat and soft as he tried to figure out what she liked and what she didn’t. She gasped softly as he hummed while sucking at her clit carefully, and she tugged his hair hard and panted quickly when he began to gently let the soft tip of his tongue slip back and forth over her.

“Don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop,” she chanted, so Deeks doggedly persevered with his technique. He traced the outline of her opening with one finger and gently slipped it inside up to the first knuckle, testing to see if she liked that or not. It seemed that she did, very much so if the glorious noises she was making were any indication. He let the rest of his finger slide in slowly, then he pulled it out and repeated the motion.

Kensi was writhing around him now, letting out noises that travelled straight to his dick. He kept up his actions, refusing to change what was obviously working for her except to add another finger. She screamed then, her head rolling back with the force of it as he went for broke and sucked harder, pumped his fingers in and out of her quicker.

He felt the force of her orgasm as it broke through her body. He watched with pride as she shivered and writhed, gasping for breath, nipples standing proudly from her flushed chest. Her internal muscles clamped down on his fingers tightly, squeezing them with such force that he half-worried about the state his dick would be in when he got the chance to make her come while he was in her.

He rocked back on his knees, wiping his wet mouth and chin as Kensi lay gasping on the couch in front of him. She beckoned mutely with her arms and he lay back down next to her, touching her gently as she rode out the aftershocks that the soft grazes to her nipples caused.

“Hi,” he said softly, when the dazed look had disappeared from her face.

“Hi,” she said back, smiling like the cat that had just got the canary. “Just so you know, you can do that again whenever you like.”

“I’ll remember that,” he said, stroking her hair that lay in sweaty tendrils around her face.

Kensi’s hands reached down to finish unzipping his jeans, but he caught her hand.

“Careful,” he warned. “I’m on a bit of a hair-trigger here.”

“Sooner you come, sooner we can get on to round two,” Kensi shrugged.

“I don’t think that’s going to be much of a problem,” he said, taking a deep breath as she stripped him of his jeans and boxer shorts.

“Wow,” she said, eying him frankly. “I’m impressed. Never thought you had it in you, Deeks.”

It was on the tip of his tongue, but the few rational, working braincells that were still functioning screamed at him that it would be a pun too far. Clearly Kensi thought so too, as she rolled her eyes.

“What? I didn’t say it!” Deeks protested, as he scrambled back into the deep cushions of the couch, propping himself up in a seated position.

“And just because of that, you’re gonna get your reward,” Kensi told him, before she leant over him, dipped her head and sucked the very tip of the head of his cock into her mouth.

The curtain of her long, dark hair fell about her face, but her position, perched on the couch, pushed her ass high in the air and for a good few minutes Deeks watched the spectacular sight of her undulating curves as she slowly began to bob her head up and down.

After a short while he raked a hand through her hair, pushing it aside to watch her red, swollen lips slide up and down his shaft. He knew he wouldn’t last long; he was too turned on by a whole year of foreplay, let alone the sight of her shaking and breaking into a million orgasmic pieces in front of him just a few minutes earlier. He tried to warn her, but she just winked at him and began to massage that knot of nerves just below the head gently while she flicked her tongue in and out of the slit.

That was all it took. Frankly, he was amazed he lasted as long as he had.

It felt like there were a couple of thousand volts of electricity being channelled straight down his spine and through his dick. He could feel the soft, wet suction of Kensi’s mouth as he released into her, and then his nerves must have shut down with sensory overload as he slumped back onto the sofa. Kensi joined him a few moments later and he hugged her tightly to him

“That was…” he began, but couldn’t seem to find a way to finish.

“Yeah,” Kensi said, intelligently, before yawning.

“Oh no,” he said, yawning himself. “You’re not falling asleep, Kensi Blye. You don’t get to be the man in this relationship.”

“You wanna stay awake and talk about our feelings?” she asked, half turning to find a more comfortable position curled up against him.

“It’s just…” Deeks began, then sighed melodramatically. The noise was enough to make Kensi prop herself up on one arm and look at him, alarmed.

“Will you still respect me in the morning?” he asked, quivering his bottom lip for the full effect.

Kensi snorted with laughter and punched him in the shoulder.

“What makes you think I respect you now?” she teased, and he barked with laughter. That, right there, was why he loved her so damned much.

He told her so before he realised the words had come out of his mouth; they seemed to flow too naturally to be contained. He worried briefly that he’d fucked up, that she was going to retreat from his honesty. But after an agonising moment, she smiled, almost shyly, at him and kissed him before whispering the same words to him. They were private words, he realised; while he could happily shout his from the rooftops, hers were reserved for quiet moments like these, private and alone.

He could live with that, he realised, as she melted into him for a kiss that he felt right down to his bones.

He tried to tell her that he was fine with that, that they could keep this new turn in their partnership a secret between them, but Kensi had fallen asleep. He tugged her closer and closed his eyes. They could talk about it later.

They woke a few hours afterwards, rested and refreshed, but in dire need of a shower. Kensi was distracted by the sheer size of the bath, though, so a bath it was. He had never realised just how sensual an experience bathing somebody else was until he was allowed to soap up Kensi’s beautiful body and explore every beauty spot and tiny scar from a childhood spent rock climbing, mountain biking and learning how to fight.

His own scars were bigger, and less pretty; her fingers lingered on the bullet wounds left on his chest and she kissed them tenderly.

“No more of these,” she warned him, soaping his chest up with a generous splash of the designer toiletries that the bathroom was stocked with.

He said nothing, and he could tell she understood why. He could promise to love her for the rest of his life, he could promise to spend every spare minute learning how to make her happy, but he couldn’t promise that he wouldn’t die on the job. Neither could she.

“I’ll try,” he said at last, and he could tell she knew what he really meant; I promise to wear a vest whenever I can, I promise to wait for backup, I promise to fight for every second I can stay alive for you.

“I’ll try too,” she said, and then they stopped talking and started to make love in the water, splashing far too much of it over the side as she straddled him and let herself sink slowly onto him. She moved slowly, partly because she was far too tight to go any faster and partly because she knew just how wild she was driving him. He let his hands drift down to her ass and stay there, exploring and squeezing the firm muscle as she rolled her hips and clenched down on him hard enough to make him see stars.

He was able to fit a hand between their bodies; she guided him to the right spot and showed him how she liked to be touched. Then it was an explosion of fingers and lips and sweet, tight tension until she screwed up her face and wailed, and he thrust upwards blindly three, four, five times and shouted something unintelligible even to his own ears.

They stayed in the water until it cooled down, then they moved from the bathroom to the king sized bed.

“We didn’t use anything,” Deeks said suddenly as they lay sprawled under the covers.

“I’m on the pill,” Kensi assured him. “You don’t have to worry.”

“I’m clean,” Deeks said. “So don’t you worry either.”

“I’ve never done that before,” Kensi admitted. “I’ve always used condoms. Always.”

“If you don’t like it, we can use them,” Deeks said mildly. “It’s not a problem for me.”

Kensi screwed up her nose.

“It’s the mess,” she admitted. “I’ve never liked the thought of it.”

“Condoms in bed, none in the shower,” Deeks shrugged. “Best of both worlds.”

“Better stock up,” Kensi said mischievously, snaking a hand down his chest.

“There’s something else I wanted to talk about,” Deeks said, intercepting her hand and bringing it to his lips. He appreciated the thought, but he wasn’t eighteen anymore.

“What’s that?” Kensi asked, but they were interrupted by the sound of her cell phone ringing.

“I thought you switched that off!” he called, as she wriggled out of bed and dashed naked into the other room to find it.

“Hi Callen,” she responded, coming back into the room. “How’s the paperwork going?”

She grinned evilly, and hit the speakerphone option. Callen’s complaints rang out in the room.

“Hetty hit us with our forty eight hour required leave forms,” Kensi told the phone, climbing back into bed. “What were we supposed to do, ignore them? Are you that brave?”

“You could have at least come back to ops,” Callen sighed. “Handled your side of it a little.”

“Did you call just to complain?” Kensi asked, returning her hand to its former intended target, clasping her other hand over Deeks’ mouth. “Or was there a point to this conversation?”

“We’re about half an hour from finishing, and Sam’s hungry. We wanted to know if you wanted to grab something to eat with us. We tried calling Deeks but all we got was his voicemail.”

“He’s right here, let me ask him. You wanna go and grab something to eat with Callen and Sam?”

Deeks shook his head under her hand.

“No, you’re right, we’re not really dressed for it,” Kensi said, her tone wicked. “I’m sorry Callen, you got us right when we got out of the tub.”

“Oh I’m sorry I…wait…what?” Callen said, his voice reaching a new level of shock that Deeks had never heard before. “What did you say?” he demanded.

“At the moment we’re in the Presidential Bungalow at The Beverly Hills Hotel,” Kensi said firmly. “There’s an outdoor dining area for six with a private waterfall plunge pool, or an indoor dining room for ten. Apparently we have a butler, so I’m thinking room service won’t be a problem. Just give us an hour, okay?”

“You’re kidding me,” Callen said, his voice full of disbelief.

Kensi removed one hand from Deeks’ mouth and squeezed lightly with the other.

“Hi Callen,” Deeks groaned.

“Oh my God, why did you make me hear that?” Callen yelled, appalled.

Kensi and Deeks both laughed.

“Tell your butler that Sam is going to order tiny eggs and expensive fungus,” Callen warned. “And I’m gonna want a seafood tower the size of…”

“Deeks?” Kensi interrupted and Callen yelled at them again in disgust and hung up.

“We have an hour,” Kensi said, switching off her phone and throwing it onto the bed. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Nothing,” Deeks said, marvelling at the brave, fierce, totally contradictory woman in front of him. She had to know that he’d want to be open about their relationship; she was sacrificing her privacy for his comfort. “Nothing,” he repeated. “In fact,” he went on, “I think that I’m not gonna be able to talk for the next hour.”

“Why won’t you be able to…oh yes…” she breathed, as Deeks put his mouth to a far better purpose than just talking.


End file.
